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By Krederick (ioodall 




MARY AND 


rilK 


IN FAN ! 


SAVIOUR 


MARY: 

THE 

QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID 

AND 

MOTHER OF JESUS. 


THE STORY OF HER LIFE, 

' I 

Gabriel. — " Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee : * 

Blessed art thou among women.” 

Mary. — ” All generations shall call me blessed.” 

^ o' 

Rev. a. STEWART WALSH, D.D. 

i'j 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

Rev. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D. 

ILLUSTRATED, 

: , S / g- ^ 

NEW YORK: 

HENRY S. ALLEN. 


I 


1886. 

C-3 




f/3 


rw 


SL 


Copyright, 

1886, 

By HENRY S. ALLEN. 


PUBLISHER’S NOTICE. 

\ 


The Publisher takes great pleasure in appending the opinion of Mrs. 
Stowe, in regard to a work of the character of the one here presented : 

“ It has often seemed to me that no greater service 
could be done to a large class of the community than to 
re-produce the sacred narrative under the aspect which 
it presents to an imaginative mind with the appliances 
of geographical, historical and critical knowledge.” 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 

Hartford, Ct, (Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.) 


To WOMANKIND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD 


THIS 

STORY OF A LIFE 


MOST 


BEAUTIFUL, BENEFICENT, AND INSPIRING 


s gje^ijcatje^ 


BY THE AUTHOR. 


INTRODUCTION TO 


THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID. 


By Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D.D. 


HAVE been asked to open the front door 
of this book. But I must not keep you 
standing too long on the threshold. The 
picture-gallery, the banqueting hall and 
the throne-room are inside. All the fascinations 
of romance are, by the able author, thrown around 
the facts of Mary’s life. Much-abused tradition is 
also called in for splendid service. The pen that 
the author wields is experienced, graceful, capti- 
vating, and multipotent. As perhaps no other book 
that was ever written, this one will show us woman as 
standing at the head of the world. It demonstrates in 
the life of Mary what woman was and what woman 
may be. Woman’s position in the world is higher 
than man’s ; and although she has often been denied 
the right of suffrage, she always does vote and always 
will vote — by her influence ; and her chief desire ought 
to be that she should have grace rightly to rule in the 
dominion which she has already won. 

She has no equal as a comforter of the sick, 




viil 


Introduction, 


What land, what street, what house has not felt the 
smitings of disease? Tens of thousands of sick beds! 
What shall we do with them ? Shall man, with his 
rough hand, and heavy foot, and impatient bearing, 
minister? No; he cannot soothe the pain. He can 
not quiet the nerves. He knows not where to set the 
light. His hand is not steady enough to pour out the 
drops. He is not wakeful enough to be watcher. You 
have known men who have despised women, but the 
moment disease fell upon them, they did not send for 
their friends at the bank or their wordly associates. 
Their first cry was, “ Take me to my wife.” The dis- 
sipated young man at the college scoffs at the idea of 
being under home influence ; but at the first blast 
of typhoid fever on his cheek he says, “Where is 
mother?” I think one of the most pathetic passages 
in all the Bible is the description of the lad who went 
out to the harvest fields of Shunem and got sunstruck ; 
throwing his hands on his temples, and crying out, 
“ Oh, my head ! my head ! ” and they said, “ Carry 
him to his mother. ’ And the record is “ He sat on 
her knees till noon and then died.” 

In the war men cast the cannon, men fashioned the 
muskets, men cried to the hosts “Forward, march!” 
men hurled their battalions on the sharp edges of 
the enemy, crying “ Charge ! charge ! ” but woman 
scraped the lint, woman administered the cordials, 
woman watched by the dying couch, woman wrote 
the last message to the home circle, woman wept 
at the solitary burial, attended by herself and four 
men with a spade. Men did their work with shot 
^nd shell, and carbine and howitzer ; women did their 


^ Introduction, ix 

work with socks and slippers, and bandages, and warm 
drinks, and scripture texts, and gentle soothings of the 
hot temples, and stories of that land where they 
never have any pain. Men knelt down over the 
wounded and said, “ On which side did you fight ? ” 
Women knelt down over the wounded and said, 
“ Where are you hurt ? What nice thing can I make 
for you to eat ? What makes you cry?” To-night, 
while wc men are soundly asleep in our beds, there 
will be a light in yonder loft ; there will be groaning 
down that dark alley ; there will be cries of distress in 
that cellar. Men will sleep and women will watch. 

No one as well as a woman can handle the poor. 
There are hundreds and thousands of them in all our 
cities. There is a kind of work that men cannot do 
for the destitute. Man sometimes gives his charity 
in a rough way, and it falls like the fruit of a tree 
in the East, which fruit comes down so heavily 
that it breaks the skull of the man who is trying 
to gather it. But woman glides so softly into the 
house of want, and finds out all the sorrows of 
the place, and puts so quietly the donation on the 
table, that all the family come out on the front steps 
as she departs, expecting that from under her shawl 
she will thrust out two wings and go right up to 
Heaven, from whence she seems to have come down. 
O, Christian young woman, if you would make your- 
self happy and win the blessings of Christ, go out 
among the poor! A loaf of bread or a bundle of 
socks may make a homely load to carry, but the angels 
of God will come out to watch, and the Lord Almighty 
\yill giv^ His messenger hosts a charge, saying, “Look 


X 


Introduction. 


after that woman ; canopy her with your wings, and 
shelter her from all harm." And while you are seated 
in the house of destitution and suffering, the little 
ones around the room will whisper, Who is she? is 
she not beautiful ? " and if you will listen right sharply, 
you will hear dripping through the leaky roof, and 
rolling over the broken stairs, the angel chant that 
shook Bethlehem : “ Glory to God in the highest, and 
on earth peace and good will to man." Can you tell 
why a Christian woman, going down among the haunts 
of iniquity on a Christian errand, seldom meets with 
any indignity ? 

I stood in the chapel of Helen Chalmers, the daugh- 
ter of the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, in the most aban. 
doned part of the city of Edinburg; and I said to her, 
as I looked around upon the fearful surroundings of 
that place, “ Do you come here nights to hold a 
service?" “ Oh, yes," she said; “I take my lantern 
and 1 go through all these haunts of sin, the darkest 
and the worst ; and I ask all the men and women to 
come to the chapel, and then I sing for them, and I 
pray for them, and I talk to them." I said, “ Can it be 
possible that you never meet with an insult while per- 
forming this Christian errand?" “Never," she said; 
“ never." That young woman, who has her father by 
her side, walking down the street, and an armed police- 
man at each corner is not so well defended as that 
Christian woman who goes forth on Gospel work into 
the haunts of iniquity carrying the Bible and bread. 

Some one said, “ I dislike very much to see that 
Christian woman teaching these bad boys in the 
mission school. I am afraid to have her instruct 


Introduction. 


XI 


them." So," said another man, “ I am afraid too." 
Said the first, I am afraid they will use vile language 
before they leave the place." Ah," said the other 
man, I am not afraid of that ; what I am afraid of is, 
that if any of those boys should use a bad word in her 
presence, the other boys would tear him to pieces — 
killing him on the spot." 

Woman is especially endowed to soothe disaster 
She is called the weaker vessel, but all profane as well 
as sacred history attests that when the crisis comes she 
is better prepared than man to meet the emergency. 
How often have you seen a woman who seemed to be 
a disciple of frivolity and indolence, who, under 
one stroke of calamity, changed to be a heroine. 
There was a crisis in your affairs, you struggled 
bravely and long, but after a while there came a 
day when you said, Here I shall have to stop;" 
and you called in your partners, and you called 
in the most prominent men in your employ, and 
you said, “We have got to stop." You left the 
store suddenly; you could hardly make up your 
mind to pass through the street and over on the 
ferry-boat ; you felt everybody would be looking at you 
and blaming you and denouncing you. You hastened 
home ; you told your wife all about the affair. What 
did she say ? Did she play the butterfly ; did she talk 
about the silks and the ribbons and the fashions? No ; 
she came up to the emergency ; she quailed not under 
the stroke. She helped you to begin to plan right 
away. She offered to go out of the comfortable house 
into a smaller one, and wear the old cloak another 
winter. She was one who understood your affairs 


Xll 


Introduction, 


without blaming you. You looked upon what you 
thought was a thin, weak woman’s arm holding you 
up ; but while you looked at that arm there came into 
the feeble muscles of it the strength of the eternal 
God. No chiding. No fretting. No telling you 
about the beautiful house of her father, from which 
you brought her, ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. 
You said, “Well, this is the happiest day of my 
life. I am glad I have got from under my burden. 
My wife don’t care — I don’t care.” At the moment 
you were utterly exhausted, God sent a Deborah 
to meet the host of the Amalekites and scatter 
them like chaff over the plain. There are scores 
and hundreds of households to-day where as much 
bravery and courage are demanded of woman as was 
exhibited by Grace Darling or Marie Antoinette or 
Joan of Arc. 

Woman is further endowed to bring us into the 
Kingdom of Heaven. It is easier for a woman to be a 
Christian than for a man. Why? You say she is 
weaker. No. Her heart is more responsive to the 
pleadings of divine love. The fact that she can more 
easily become a Christian, I prove by the statement 
that three-fourths of the members of the churches in 
all Christendom are women. So God appoints them 
to be the chief agencies for bringing this world back to 
God. The greatest sermons are not preached on 
celebrated platforms ; they are preached with an audi- 
ence of two or three and in private home-life. A 
patient, loving, Christian demeanor in the presence of 
transgression, in the presence of hardness, in the pres- 
ence of obduracy and crime, is an argument from the 


Introduction, 


xiii 

throne of the Lord Almighty; and blessed is that 
woman who can wield such an argument. A sailor 
came slipping down the ratlin one night as though 
something had happened, and the sailors cried, 
“What’s the matter?” He said, “My mother’s 
prayers haunt me like a ghost.” 

In what a realm is every mother the queen. The 
eagles of heaven can not fly across that dominion. 
Horses, panting and with lathered flanks, are not swift 
enough to run to the outpost of that realm, and 
death itself will only be the annexation of heavenly 
principalities. When you want your grandest idea 
of a queen you do not think of Catherine of 
Russia, or of Anne of England, or Maria Theresa 
of Germany : but when you want to get your grand- 
est idea of a queen you think of the plain woman 
who sat opposite your father at the table or walked 
with him, arm in arm, down life’s pathway; some- 
times to the Thanksgiving banquet, sometimes to 
the grave, but always together ; soothing your petty 
griefs, correcting your childish waywardness, joining 
in your infantile sports, listening to your evening 
prayer, toiling for you with needle or at the spinning 
wheel, and on cold nights wrapping you up snug and 
warm ; and then, at last, on that day when she lay in 
the back room dying, and you saw her take those thin 
hands with which she had toiled for you so long, and 
put them together in a dying prayer that commended 
you to the God whom she had taught you to trust — 
oh, she was the queen ! The chariots of God came 
down to fetch her, and as she went in, all heaven rose 
up. You can not think of her now without a rush of 


xiv 


Introduction, 


tenderness that stirs the deep foundations of your 
soul, and you feel as much a child again as when you 
cried on her lap ; and if you could bring her back to 
life again to speak, just once more, your name as ten- 
derly as she used to speak it, you would be willing to 
throw yourself on the ground and kiss the sod that 
covers her, crying, “ Mother ! mother ! " Ah, she was 
the queen ! 

Home influences are the mightiest of all influences 
upon the soul. There are men who have maintained 
their integrity, not because they were any better 
naturally than some other people, but because there 
were home influences praying for them all the time. 
They got a good start. They were launched on the 
world with the benedictions of a Christian mother. 
They may track Siberian snows, they may plunge 
into African jungles, they may fly to the earth’s end, 
they can not go so far and so fast but the prayer will 
keep up with them. Oh, what a multitude of women 
in heaven. Mary, Christ’s mother, in heaven. Eliza- 
beth Fry in heaven. Charlotte Elizabeth in heaven. 
The mother of Augustine in heaven. The Countess 
of Huntingdon is in heaven — who sold her splendid 
jewels to build chapels — in heaven ; while a great 
many others who have never been heard of on 
earth, or known but little of, have gone into the 
rest and peace of heaven. What a rest. What a 
change it was from the small room with no fire 
and one window, the glass broken out, and the 
aching side and worn out eyes, to the ‘'‘house of many 
mansions.” Heaven for aching heads. Heaven for 
broken hearts. Heaven for anguish-bitten frames. 


Introduction, 


XV 


No more sitting up until midnight for the coming 
of staggering steps. No more rough blows on the 
temples. No more sharp, keen, bitter curses. 

Some of you will have no rest in this world ; it will 
be toil and struggle all the way up. You will have to 
stand at your door fighting back the wolf with your 
own hand red with carnage. But God has a crown for 
you. He is now making it, and whenever you weep a 
tear, He sets another gem in that crown ; whenever 
you have a pang of body or soul, He puts another gem 
in that crown, until after a while in all the tiara there 
will be no room for another splendor ; and God will 
say to his angel, “ The crown is done ; let her up that 
she may wear it.” And as the Lord of righteousness 
puts the crown upon your brow, angel will cry to 
angel, “ Who is she ? ” and Christ will say, “ I will 
tell you who she is ; she is the one that came up out 
of great tribulation and had her robe washed and made 
white in the blood of the Lamb.” And then God will 
spread a banquet, and He will invite all the principali- 
ties of heaven to sit at the feast, and the tables will 
blush with the best clusters from the vineyards of God 
and crimson with the twelve manner of fruits from the 
tree of life, and water from the fountains of the rock 
will flash from the golden tankards ; and the old 
harpers of heaven will sit there, making music with 
their harps, and Christ will point you out amid the 
celebrities of heaven, saying, She suffered with me 
on earth, now we are going to be glorified together.” 
And the banquetters, no longer able to hold their 
peace, will break forth with congratulation. “Hail! 
hail ! ” And there will be a handwriting on the wall ; 


XVI 


Introduction. 


not such as struck the Persian noblemen with horror, 
but with fire-tipped fingers writing in blazing capitals 
of light and love and victory : “ God has wiped away 
all tears from all faces.” 

And now I leave you in the hands of Dr. Walsh, 
the author of this book. He will show you Mary, the 
model of all womanly, wifely, motherly excellence — 
the Madonna hanging in the Louvre of admiration for 
all Christendom, and for many millions in the higher 
Vatican of their worship. 

T. De Witt Talmage. 


Brooklyn, N. Y., June 13, 1886, 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter I. — The Queen’s Portrait. 

“ A form beloved comes again ” — Inspired painters in a 
voyage of discovery — Tributes to Mary, honoring all 
womankind — Guido’s wish — Madonnas of many climes. 
Raphael’s ‘‘Transfigured Woman ” Savonarola’s bon- 
fire St. Luke’s picture of the Virgin — The Vandal 

spirit Page 29 

Chapter II. — The Pilgrim, Crusader and Virgin. 

Life a pilgrimage — Pilgrims of many faiths — A struggle for 
holy places between the Pilgrim-Crusaders and Mos- 
lem — The harem and the home — The rise of Chivalry — 
The Knights and “ Our Lady ” — The results of the Cru- 
sades Page 36 

Chapter III. — Armageddon ! “ The Key and Sickle.’* 

“ The wandering hermit wakes the storms of war ” — Acre 
and Esdraelon, the “Armageddon ” or “ Mountain of the 
Gospel ” of the Scriptures — The battle-field of nations — 
The City of J eanne d’Arc. The jewel in the sickle-haft — 
Prince Edward, the Crusade leader — Sultan Kha-tel — 
The sacking of Acre — Actors introduced. . Page 48 

Chapter IV. — Sir Charleroy ; The Soldier of For- 
tune AND Knight of Saint Mary. 

The flight from Acre to Nazareth — The born-leader — Life 
estimates with Death holding the scales — A prince 
honors, a bishop blesses, and a mother loves — An epit- 
ome of paradoxes. Page 53 


xviii 


The Queen of the House of David. 

Chapter V. — Nazareth. 

Nazareth, the place of Mary’s nativity — The choice of 
a leader — The coward king — The Virgin’s Fount — 
English songsters — The Knights’ mountain Litany — 
Longings for home and mother — Nain and Endor’s 
lessons. Page 6i 


Chapter VI. — The Fugitives. 

A night bivouac amid sacred scenes — The “ Knight of the 
Holy-Sepulcher ” who fled on “ a white charger with 
black wings ” — The funeral at dawn — Mary’s palm- 
bearing angel-guard — The twelve knights separate into 
two parties — Will-makings and farewells — By Endor 
to oblivion Page 74 


Chapter VII. — Ichabod. 

Sir Charleroy’s band approach Shunem, the City of Elijah 
— The surprise — Sir Charleroy the captive of Azrael the 
Mameluke — The Mohammedan heaven depicted — “ A 
hair, the bridge over hell ” — The odoriferous houris — A 
gorgeous charnel-house blasted — The prodigal becomes 
the herald of purity — The Knight of Saint Mary and the 
Jewish Spy — Adversity makes the Knight and the Jew 
friends — I'he Knight instructing Ichabod — “ ’Till Shiloh 
comes ” — “ The true, refined and final Judaism” — “ The 
east and the west embracing ; truth leading.” — An 
honest doubt is a real prayer Page 82 

Chapter VIH. — From Jericho to Jordon. 

The radiant proselyte — Climbing to glory — The ghostly 
forms hovering over submerged Sodom — Jordon’s sweet- 
ening — Siddim-angels among the willows and oleanders 
by the Dead Sea — Summonsed to fight for the Crescent 
or go to the slave mart — Nourahmal “ The light of the 
harem” becomes the disciple and friend of Ichabod — 
A debate concerning women — A rarity and a wonder — 
I told her women had souls ; she laughed like a 
monkey” — The flight from Jericho by night — The 
lightning — God’s torch — “ Canst thou dance rocks 


Contents, 


XIX 


into camels ? ” — A mummy’s flight, and the burial of a 
live man — “Unclean” — The solemn passage of Jor- 
dan. . Page 93 

Chapter IX. — The Feast of The Rose. 

A breakfast of lentils and barley in the wilderness — The 
gloom of the Knight and the joy of the Jew — Sermons on 
fate and songs in flowers — The poetry of Ichabod — Celi- 
bacy a reward at Rome — KnepK “ The father of his 
mother” — The heathen and the Christian “ Feast of 
the Rose ” — The summary of the events in Mary’s life 
and in the life of Jesus — The Egyptian Rosary — Neb-ta 
the maiden sister — The egg and the cross, ancient signs 
of immortality — The Copt priest — The insights of the 
Egyptians symbolized by the Sphinx. . . Page 113 

Chapter X. — After Eve, Esther or Mary ? 

By Jabbock, in the native place of Ichabod — Israelitish 
maidens keeping the feast of Esther — Religious love, 
filial love and lover’s love — The poetic Jew’s rhapsody 
concerning affection — God’s voice in the Garden — The 
ideal women of the Old Testament and of the New — The 
Jew’s cry for mother — Vacillating Sir Charleroy — 
“ Echo’s Magic ” — Jewish customs. . . . Page 135 

Chapter XI. — The Feast of Purim. 

A night-scene by Jabbock — Harrimai the priest, and his 
daughter Rizpah — The religious ceremonial and the 
revel — Sir Charleroy and Rizpah as “ Ahasuerus and 
Esther ” — The Knight’s secret discovered — Conquest of 
a woman’s heart through pity — “ Of what metals Jewish 
maidens are.” Page 152 

Chapter XII. — Astarte or Mary ? 

The Knight of Saint Mary enslaved by a Hebrew beauty — 
The journey toward Bozrah — The Mameluke attack — 
The hand to hand fight — Sir Charleroy wounded and 
Ichabod slain — Rizpah’s heroism in peril — Espousal in 
the face of death — A wonderful vision, . . Page 170 


XX The Queen of the House of David. 

Chapter XIII. — From Ramoth Gilead to Damascus. 

Teacher and pupil become patient and nurse — Perilous re- 
lations — Delights, assurances, fears and clouds — Harri- 
mai’s discovery and his malediction — Love’s debate and 
decision — Elopement by night — the Knight and the 
Jewess wedded at Damascus Page 182 

Chapter XIV. — The Theater of the Giants. 

The death of Harrimai — A honey-moon in the “ Eye of the 
East” — To Bashan with the Mecca chaplet-seekers — 
Nature, art and desolation — Lejah’s black lava-sea — The 
frenzies of Gerash’s passion-flower — Reaction after ex- 
altation — “ A camel voyage in-sea” — Rizpah’s challenge 
— Jealous of Sir Charleroy’s love for Mary — “ Illusion ” 
— The church of Saint George at Edrei — Recrimination 
— Ridicule costly to pride— Neither Christian, Jew nor 
Pagan — A woman with unsettled faith — A babe poisoned 
by its mother’s passion — The lamp and the palm-trees 
— The Knight’s appeals — Omens — A beacon needed — 
Fleeing the Lejah — To Bozrah Page 195 

Chapter XV. — The Revels of Men and the rites of 
Their Goddesses. 

Kunawatat the City of Job — The Shrine of Astarte — The 
Cyclopean image — Questioning the Soul, Time and 
God — Hugeness, greatness ; littleness, caricature — The 
naked worshipers of the golden calf — Sins exposed — 
Purity’s vision — Phallic mysteries — Khem — Female 
deities — Dualism — Immortality by progeny and by re- 
generation — The fire-worshiper’s mystic number eight, 
and the Jewish covenant number seven, , Page 212 

Chapter XVI. — A Battle of Giants at Bozrah. 

Houses forty centuries old — The old stone-house of an 
ancient giant becomes the home of the knight and his 
wife — How circumstances change people — Recrimina- 
tions and reconciliation — “ The gall taken from animals 
offered to Juno, goddess of marriage ” — Rizpah’s temper 
tl]at seemed brilliant before wedlock, afterwar4 seems to 


Contents, 


XXI 


Sir Charleroy very like that of a virago — The charming 
nonsense of those for the first time parents — Shall she 
be named Davidah, Angela, Marah or Mary ? — The 
Christian and Jewish faith battle about the cradle — The 
separation of husband and wife, in anger — The sick 
child and the desolated, deserted wife — Rizpah longs 
for a mother, such as Mary of Bethlehem. . Page 224 

Chapter XVII. — Rizpah the Ancient Mother of Sor- 
rows. 

After many years, Rizpah dwells in Bozrah with her three 
children — Rizpah of Bozrah fascinated by Rizpah of 
Gibeah — Miriamne the daughter of Rizpah — The 
daughter appalled by her mother’s mysterious hallucina- 
tions — The wonders of mother-love — The story of the 
ancient, Jewish “Mother of Sorrows” — The omen of 
the bat and the parable of the stars. . . Page 245 

Chapter XVIII. — The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant 

City. 

The old and the young Jews — The old Christian priest and 
his Jewess proselyte — Attacked by Mamelukes — The 
“ Old Clock Man ” — The Balsam Band — Miriamne, 
the Jewess proselyte, questions concerning the queen 
of the old priest’s heart — The miraculous picture of 
Mary at Damascus — Silver hands and feet — Crown 
jewels. . Page 264 

Chapter XIX. — The Story of Mary’s Childhood. 

Page 282 

Chapter XX. — The Wedding — The Birth and the 

Flight. 

The birth of Jesus and the flight to Egypt — Miriamne 
reads to her mother a Christian account of Mary’s 
espousal — Rizpah curious but doubtful. . Page 293 

Chapter XXI. — The Queen and Her Family in Egypt. 

Father Adolphus and Miriamne converse of the Holy 
family’s sojourn in Egypt — Heliopolis an 4 the Temple 


xxii The Queen of the House of David, 

of the Sun — Fire-worshipers — At Memphis, the shrine 
of Apis the sacred bull — The red heifer of Israel — The 
Holy Family rescued in Egypt by a robber who after- 
ward died on the cross next to the Savior — The legend 
of a gipsy’s prophecy concerning Jesus — Zingarella 
won by the Virgin Page 312 

Chapter XXII. — The Shadow of the Cross. 

Rizpah dreading heresy yet charmed by the story of the 
“ Girl Wife ” — “ Behold my mother and brethren ” — 
Christ’s message to his widowed mother — The “ Church 
of the Terror ” — Rizpah’s vision of “ Glad Tidings.” 
Rizpah of Bozrah allured from Rizpah of Gibeah — A 
hot-chase after an old love — The sword that pierced 
Mary — The shadow of the cross horrifies Rizpah — The 
faith of the Nazarene denounced — Miriamne driven 
from home by her mother Page 322 

Chapter XXIII. — The Miserere and the Easter An- 
them. 

Miriamne alone at night in the giant city — A refuge at the 
Christian priest’s — The midnight Miserere — Penitents 
— Easter at Bozrah — Finding the mother-love in God’s 
heart Page 337 

Chapter XXIV. — A Heroine’s Pilgrimage. 

The convert’s yearnings — “ Go and tell ” — When parents 
oppose each other which shall the child follow ? — A 
child of the kingdom in a new family circle — Jesus, 
Mary and the elect — Miriamne’s two great ambitions — 
Living apart may be as sinful as actual divorcement — 
Father Adolphus encourages and Rizpah opposes Miri- 
amne — Rizpah recounts to Miriamne the story of her 
love for Sir Charleroy, his madness and her own futile 
visit to London in the effort to win him back — The 
curse of heredity — “ I’ll disown thee with tears in my 
voice and kisses in my heart.” . . . . . Page 351 

Chapter XXV. — Consolatrix Afflictorum. 

Miriamne’s welcome by the London Palestineans — The 
daughter meets her father in a mad-house — Disappoint- 


Contents, 


xxiii 


ftient — The flight — The search — The White Madonna 
of the Asylum Park — Love the remedy of minds per- 
turbed by hate — Pallas-Athene the virgin of the 
heathen — Miriamne’s letter to her mother and its grim 
answer Page 367 

Chapter XXVI. — The Wedding at Cana. 

Sir Charleroy giving signs of recovery under Miriamne’s 
ministries — A remarkable service in the chapel of the 
Palestineans — The knight interested in the story of 
Cana — The address of Cornelius, on “ Home ” and 
‘‘ Marriage ” — “ Is this London or Bozrah ? ” — Sir 
Charleroy’s sudden relapse — Miriamne's adroit minis- 
tries — Memories that awaken hopes — The clouds again 
lifting — Mary’s life motto Page 381 

Chapter XXVII. — The Star of the Sea. 


Sir Charleroy, partially restored, with Miriamne and Corne- 
lius journeying toward Syria — Passing Cyprus — Olym- 
pus — A storm rising on the Mediterranean — Cornelius 
presses his love suit on Miriamne — Miriamne pledges 
love, but pleads her mission as a barrier to marriage — 
Conflicts below, tempests aloft — A dream ; Venus’s 
court and Mary’s triumph — Sir Charleroy in frenzy de- 
fying the billows — An hour of peril — The “ Lightning 
Song ” of the sailors — The twin stars — “ Mary, Star of 
the Sea ” — The victims of fabricated consciences — 
Parting Page 397 


Chapter XXVIII. — The Queen in the Valley of 
Sorrows. 

Father and daughter at Acre — The mysterious Hospitaler — 
From Acre to Joppa — “ The myths are as full of women 
as the women are full of myths” — The wars of men about 
women — At Jerusalem — The wonderful words of the 
Knight-Hospitaler, turned preacher — The Via Dolorosa 
— The Valley of Jehosaphat — The mountain outlook — 
Soldiers Speed the Cross ” — Mary, the sun of women, 
rising in moral grandeur above the women of the grove- 
shrines — The panorama of the ages, passing before 
Mary’s mind Page 419 


XXiv The Queen of the House of David, 

Chapter XXIX.— Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two 
Living Ones. 

From Jerusalem to Bozrah — The tomb of Ichabod — Sir 
Charleroy argues against meeting Rizpah — Miriamne’s 
strong argument in behalf of the lasting obligations of 
marriage — A husband reaching the climax of revenges 
— Joseph by kindness kept Mary in sweet mood and so 
blessed the unborn Christ — “ Miriamne, I am a bundle 
of contradictions ! ” — The news-rider — A plague at Bozrah 
— De Griffin’s twins nigh death — Miriamne meets her 
mother — Reconciliation — A strange funeral ; only two 
women as mourners and pall-bearers. . . . Page 437 

Chapter XXX. — The “Knight of Saint Mary” and 
Rizpah at the Grave of their Sons. 

Father Adolphus and Sir Charleroy — A ruined temple and 
a ruined man — “A woman, a woman leading in religion! ” — 
Jesus and Magdalena — The, twelve appearings of the 
lingering Christ — The Savior’s love-letter from heaven to 
His mother — Lucifer’s attempt at suicide — The kiss 
befouled by treason — The meeting of Sir Charleroy and 
Rizpah — “ The tomb of giant-love grown to mad-hate.” 

Page 453 

Chapter XXXI. — The Rose, Queen of Hearts in 
Bozrah. 

A scene of domestic happiness — Love the vassal of the will 
— Neb-ta in the “ Judgment Hall of Truth ” — The lambs 
that are offered by sectarian hates — The Arcana of 
glorious wedded love — Rizpah transformed — Miriamne’s 
public profession of Christ — Cornelius Woelfkin again 
appeals for union in wedlock — An inner and an outer 
Miriamne — The coronation of love — The solemn espousal. 

Page 467 

Chapter XXXIL— The Queen and the Grail-seekers. 

“ The gold of my heart to the man that piloted me to hap- 
piness ” — Miriamne yearns for a world in sin — Has the 
Church or God failed ? — A revoluntionary reformer — The 
story of the grail quest — The quest of a heavenly cure 


^Contents'. 

ior human iXU — The triumphant Adam and Eve — The 
queenly women of patriarchal times — The mother of the 
Savior as the wife of a carpenter — What kept her young 
heart from breaking — Miriamne's farewell to Bozrah. 

Page 484 

Chapter XXXIII. — The Hospitaler’s Oration. 

The secret meeting of the Knights at the house of Phebe — 
Swords bent sickle-like and spears crossed — After war, 
social victories — Sunrise at midnight — Each career 
determined by the life that gives life — The girdle of 
Venus — Next after God, Mary chiefly instrumental in 
giving the world a Savior Page 498 

Chapter XXXIV. — Memorials at Bozrah. 

The death of Dorothea — The priest of the wayside — The 
wedding of Cornelius and Miriamne — A pilgrimage to 
the tombs of Adolphus, Charleroy and Rizpah. Back- 
look, and outlooks Page 510 

Chapter XXXV. — The Sisters of Bethany. 

The Missioners at Bethany — The site of the Home of Jesus — 
Miriamne’s ideal society — The miracle age — A home, not 
a throne, the place of Ascension — Will Jesus so return? 
— The angel bivouac Page 522 

Chapter XXXVI. — The Queen of the House of David. 

The Knight’s Pentecost — In the upper room of Joseph of 
Arimathaea — Mary’s title and realm — Luke, the word- 
painter — The smoke side and the fire side of Pentecost. 

Page 529 

Chapter XXXVII. — The Coronation of the Queen. 

The Hospitaler deemed a prophet at Bethany. The legiti- 
macy of Jesus as the “son of David” assured through 
His mother — “ The reign of blood ” — First born — 
Pagan Rome made sponsor for Mary’s son — Doomsday 
books and royal charters Page 538 


The Queen of the Mouse of David, 


Chapter XXXVIII. — The “ light of the Harem ” in 
THE “ Temple of Allegory.” 

The old church at Bethany — A dedication — The wonders 
of symbolism — Idolatry and Mariolatry. . . Page 548 

Chapter XXXIX. — Crown Jewels. 

The Hospitaler warns the Missioners of the Sheik of Jerusa- 
lem’s designs — The son of Azrael — Immunity purchased 
— The wedding of Beulah, Nourahmal’s grand-daughter to 
a Jewish convert — The wedding address — Juno-Moneta 
— Crown jewels of maidens and mothers — Mary sounding 
the depths of woman’s miseries — A malediction for lust — 
“ Knights of the White Cross ” — The lost woman dreaming 
of how it seems to have a mother’s arms infolding her — 
The Virgin’s potent example Page 568 

Chapter XL. — The Queen’s Vision of the Age of Gold 
AND Fire. 

Nourahmal wed to the Druse camel-driver — the Druse con- 
verted — The Hospitaler’s message — Ezekiel prophecies 
fulfilled at Olivet — The “ Mother’s pillow ” — Gabriel, the 
“Angel of Mothers and of Victories.” . . Page 581 

Chapter XLI. — A Chime and a Dirge at Christmas- 
Time. 

“ Motherhood priced ” — “ Thou shalt be saved in child- 
bearing — Sylvan gods of Rome — ‘‘ The Miriamites,” — 
“In Rama, weeping and great mourning” — Joachim’s 
bleating lamb slain — Woman’s supreme hour — Maternity’s 
crucifixion — “ The Caesarian Section ” — The ebbing-tide 
and the stranded wreck, at midnight. . . . Page 595 

Chapter XLII. — The Mother of Sorrows Triumphant 
AT Last. 

The funeral of Miriamne — The Hospitaler tells the traditions 
of Mary’s death and assumption — What the Druse con- 
vert said to his camel — “ The beatings of mighty wings ” 
' — The tomb of Miriamne in Gethsemane. Page 611 


Contents, xxvii 

Chapter XLIII. — A Coffin Full of Flowers, and a 
Girdle with Wings. 

Cornelius and his son at Bethany — Changed scenes — ^Under 
the lights and shadows of Chemosh — A widower’s grief — 
Azrael’s putative son razes to the groixvl Miriamne’s 
home and temple — The legend of Mary’s coffin and girdle 
--The last of the new grail-knights — A sad and dramatic 
tableau. . . . . . 6i8 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


I. 

Mary and the Infant Jesus, - - Frontispiece. 

(The original painted by Goodall.) 

II. 

PAGE. 

Rizpah Defending the Dead Bodies of Her 

Relations, 250 

(The original painted by Becker.) 

III. 

The Marriage of Mary and Joseph,- - - 294 * 

(The original painted by Raphael.) 

IV. 

The Shadow of the Cross, 332 

(The original painted by Morris.) 

V. 

The Youth Jesus Yielding to the Wishes of 

His Mother, 366 

(The original painted by W. Holman Hunt.) 

VI. 

Mary and St. John, 433 

(The original painted by Plockhorst.) 


THE 

QUEExN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID. 


CHAPTER 1. 

THE queen’s portrait. 


And breaking as from distant gloom, 

A face comes painted on the air ; 

A presence walks the haunted room. 

Or sits within the vacant chair. 

And every object that I feel 
Seems charged by some enchanter’s wand. 
And keen the dizzy senses thrill, 

As with the touch of.spirit hand. 

A form beloved comes again, 

A voice beside me seems to start. 

While eager fancies fill the brain. 

And eager passions hold the heart.’* 



ASTER, we would see a sign from Theef 
was the cunning challenge of the Scribes 
and Pharisees. They were certain that, in 
this at least, the hearts of the people 
would be with them. A sign, a scene, a symbol, were 
the constant demand and quest of the olden times, as of 
all times. Even Jehovah led forth to victory and trust, 
as necessity was upon Him in leading human followers, 



30 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ with an outstretched arm^ and with signs and with woh^ 
dersy The Jews, seemingly so doubtful and so quer- 
ulous, after all articulated the longings of the universal 
humanity. The longing stimulated the effort to gratify 
it, and forthwith the artist became the teacher of the 
people. Presentments of Mary, as she might have been, 
and as she was imagined to have been by these most 
devout, were multiplied. Piety sought to express its 
regard for her by making her more real to faith through 
the instrumentality of the speaking canvas, but beyond 
this there was the desire to embody certain charms and 
virtues of character dear to all pure and devout ones. 
These were expressed by pictured faces, ideally perfect. 
They called each such “ Mary ” ; and if there had never 
been a real Mary, still these handiworks would have had 
no small value. Who j:an say that those consecrated 
artists were in no degree moved by the Spirit nvhich 
guided David when ‘‘ he opened dark sayings on the 
harp,” and rapturously extolled that other Beloved of 
God, the Church ? Music and painting — twin sisters — 
equal in merit, and both from Him who displays 
form, color and harmony as among the chief rewards 
and glories of His upper kingdom. These also meet a 
want in human nature as God created it. The artists 
did not beget this desire for presentments through 
form and color of the woman deemed most blessed ; 
the desire rather begot the artists. Stately theology has 
never ceased truly to proclaim from the day Christ cried 
It is finished ! ” that “ 2;^ Him all fullness dwells / ” but 
no theology, has been able to silence the cry of woman’s 
heart in woman and woman’s nature in man which 
pleads through the long years, '*Show us the mother and 


The Queen s Portrait. 


31 


it sufficeth usi' It has happened sometimes that gross 
minds have strayed from the ideal or spiritual imports 
of Mary’s life and fallen into idolizing herefhgies. That 
was their fault, and must not be taken as full proof that 
nothing but evil came from the portrayings of our 
queen. The facts are conclusively otherwise. The 
painters that made glorious ideals shine forth from the 
canvas unconsciously painted the shadows largely out 
of the conditions of all women. Before this second 
advent of the Virgin, the paganish idea that women 
were the “ weaker sex,” the inferiors of men, at best 
only useful, handsome animals, prevailed. The 
renaissance of Mary, as the ideal woman, was an event 
seeded with the germs of revolutionary impulses 
socially. Like sunrise it began in the East, at first 
dimly manifest, then it became effulgent and quickly 
coursed westward along the pathways of Christianity’s 
conquests. Like sweet, grateful light then there came 
to the hearts of men the braver true persuasion, that 
the woman who not only bore the Christ but won 
His reverent love must have been morally beautiful 
and great. In the track of this persuasion, and as its 
sequence, there came the conviction that the sex, 
of which Mary was one, had within it possibilities be- 
yond what its sturdier companions had dreamed. 
After this it came about that the painters, often the 
interpreters of human feelings, began to represent all 
goodness under the form of a Madonna. Not know- 
ing the contour of Mary’s face they began gathering 
here and there, from the women they knew, features of 
beauty. They combined these in one harmonious pre- 
sentment, They set out to represent the ide^J woman^ 


32 


The Queen of the House of David, 


but had to go to women to find her parts. It became 
a tribute to womankind to do this. It was like a voy- 
age of discovery, and the artist voyagers depicted not 
only the best things in womankind, but by putting 
these things together illustrated what woman could be 
and should be at her best. 

It was thus that Guido produced a picture of the 
Madonna which enravished all that beheld it. Once 
he had said, “ I wish I’d the wings of an angel to 
behold the beatified spirits, which I might have 
copied.” After, here and there, he picked out frag- 
ments of color and form on earth ; then put them into 
one ideal composition. It was a heart-expanding 
work ; the work of a prophet, since it told of what 
might be in woman wholly at her best. Then he said, 
“the beautiful and pure idea must be in the head” of 
the artist. It was a deep saying. Given the ideal, 
and the worker will need only proper ambition to pre- 
sent a grand composition, whether on canvas or in the 
patternings of the inner life. The presentments of the 
Virgin rose in fineness when priests turned from their 
exegesis to kneel and paint for men. The great Saint 
Augustine, held in high honor by Christians of every 
name, redeemed from a youth of darkest sinning, 
revered as his guiding star two lovely women, Monica, 
his mother, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. He 
argues, in stalwart polemics, that through the acknowl- 
edgment of Mary’s pre-eminence all womankind was 
elevated. Her presentment, so as to be fully compre- 
hended, was in the beginning a blessing to every soul 
in being an inspiration to purer, sweeter living. So 
far as such presentment now conserves the same 


The Queen s Portrait. 


33 


results the work is worthy and profitable. In all 
times the representations of the Virgin, whether by 
the historian or the master of the studio, varied ; but 
the piety they awakened always seemed to be of one 
type, and that lofty. Thus we have ‘‘ the stern, awful 
quietude of the old Mosaics, the hard lifelessness of 
the degenerate Greeks, the pensive sentiment of the 
Siena, the stately elegance of the Florentine Madon- 
nas, the intellectual Milanese, with their large fore- 
heads and thoughtful eyes, the tender, refined mysti- 
cism of the Umbrian, the sumptuous loveliness of 
the Venetian ; the quaint, characteristic simplicity of 
the early German, so stamped with their nationality 
that I never looked round me in a room full of Ger- 
man girls without thinking of Albert Durer’s Virgins; 
the intense, life-like feeling of the Spanish, the prosaic, 
portrait-like nature of the Flemish schools, and so on." 
Each time and place produced its own ideal, but all 
tried to express the one thought uppermost ; pious 
regard for the Queen and model. All seemed to feel 
that in this devotion there was somehow comfort and 
exaltation — and there generally were both. 

The writer of the foregoing quotation, a woman of 
widest culture and admirable good sense, attested the 
need that many feel by her own rapturous description 
of the Madonna of Raphael in the Dresden Gallery. 
“ I have seen my own ideal once where Raphael — 
inspired, if ever painter was inspired — projected on 
the space before him that wonderful creation." 

There she stands, the transfigured woman ; at once 
completely human and completely divine ; an abstrac- 
tion of power, purity and love; poised on the 


34 The Qtieen of the House of David, 

empurpled air, and requiring no other support ; 
with melancholy, loving mouth, her slightly dilated 
sibylline eyes looking out quite through the universe 
to the end and consummation of all things; sad, as if 
she beheld afar off the visionary sword that was to 
reach her heart through HIM, now resting as enthroned 
on that heart ; yet already exalted through the hom- 
age of the redeemed generations who were to salute 
her as blessed. Is it so indeed? Is she so divine? or 
does not rather the imagination lend a grace that is 
not there? I have stood before it and confessed that 
there is more in that form and face than I have ever 
yet conceived. The Madonna di San Sisto is an 
abstract of all the attributes of Mary.” 

The foregoing representation marked a step forward 
in things spiritual. .Before Raphael, painters number- 
less, under the influence of the luxurious and vicious 
Medici, had filled the churches of Florence with painted 
presentments of the Virgin, characterized by an allur- 
ing beauty which seemed next door to blasphemy. 
Then came that Luther of his times, Savonarola. He 
thundered for purity, simplicity and reform ; aiming 
his blows at the depraving, sensuous conceptions of 
the grosser artists. He made a bonfire in the Piazza 
of Florence, there consuming these false madonnas. 
He was, for this, persecuted to death by the Borgia 
family. They could not bear his trumpet call to Flor- 
entines, “ Your sins make me a prophet ; I have been a 
Jonah warning Nineveh ; I shall be a Jeremiah weep- 
ing over the ruins ; for God will renew His church and 
that will not take place without blood — ” Art heard 
his voice, the painters became disgusted with their 


The Queen s Portrait. 


35 


meaner handiwork, the rude, the obscene, the mis- 
chievous was obliterated ; finer, more spiritual and 
loftier concepts of the Virgin appeared as proof of a 
reformation of morals. And Raphael, later on, seeing 
these productions, felt the influence that begot them, 
and then produced that masterpiece. Tradition says 
Saint Luke painted a picture of the Virgin from life. 
The picture, reputed to have been so painted, was 
found by the Turks in Constantinople when that city 
fell into their conquering hands. They despoiled it of 
its princely jewel-decorations, then tramped it con- 
temptuously beneath their feet. The latter act was 
typical, and the Turk still lives to trample in contempt 
on honest efforts to portray with amplitude and fin- 
ished details this splendid character, whose outlines 
alone are presented by the Gospels. But though the 
Vandal spirit survives, there survives also the strong 
yearning for the representation of that woman beyond 
compare, and some will still revel amid the ideals of 
painters, and some will be gladdened still more by 
truth’s complete presentment which words alone can 
make. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE PILGRIM, CRUSADER AND VIRGIN. 

“ There is a fire — 

And motion of the soul which will not dwell. 

In its own narrow being, but aspire 
Beyond the fitting medium of desire ; 

And but once kindled, quenchless ever more. 

Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire 
Of aught but rest.” 

— “ Childe Harold'* 



HERE is something very fascinating about 
the contemplation of life as a continuous 
pilgrimage, and the fascination grows on 

one as the conviction of the truth of the 

conception is deepened by study of it. The course of 
our race has been a series of processions from continent 
to continent, from age to age, from barbarism to refine- 
ment, from darkness toward light. Whether measuring 
the little arcs of individuals from birth to dust, or follow- 
ing along the mighty marches of our universe with all 
its grouping hosts of whirling constellations, we have 
before us ever this constant truth ; man moves will- 
ingly or unwillingly onward, as a pilgrim amid pil- 
grims. “ Move on ” is the constant mandate and 
necessity of being. Man’s course is mapped ; 
pnward from the swaddling clothes to the shroud, from 


The Pilgrim y Crusader and Virgin. 37 

life to dust ; then onward again ; while all the mighty 
planet fleets of which the earth-ship is but one, move 
along their courses, over trackless oceans, toward des- 
tinations, all unknown, yet concededly in a grand as 
well as in an inexorable pilgrimage. Partly because 
the motions of his earth-ship makes nim restless, partly 
because he is a being that hopes and so comes to try 
to find by distant quests hope’s fruitions, and more 
largely because he is of a religious nature, which 
impels him to seek things beyond himself, the man 
becomes a pilgrim. He that is content as and where 
he is, always, is regarded as , a fool playing with the 
toys of a child, by wise men ; by religionists, lack of 
holy restlessness is ever adjudged to be a sign of 
depravity. Hence almost all religions, whether false 
or true, have given birth to the pilgrim spirit. The 
zeal to express and to utilize this spirit has been 
often pitiful to behold. Multitudes, failing to grasp 
the fact that life itself is a pilgrimage, have invented 
other pilgrimages and gone aside to useless, needless 
miseries. But all the time they attested human 
nature seeking something beyond itself, better than 
its present. So the tribes that lived in the lowlands 
nourished traditions of descent from gods or ances- 
tors who abode on the mountains, and they inaugu- 
rated pilgrimages to seek inspiration or a golden 
age “ on high places, far away.” The chosen people 
of God thus constantly were allured from the worship 
of the Everywhere and One Jehovah by the enthusiasm 
of the heathen devotees who flocked to the mountain 
fanes. Turn which way one will in the night of the 
ages and the spectacle of the pilgrim is before him. 


38 


The Queen of the House of David, 


Ancient Hinduism, followed by that of to-day, with 
nessed, witnesses annually, pilgrims counted by hun- 
dreds of thousands to the temple of murderous Jugger- 
naut, the Ganga Sagor, or isle of Sacred Ganges. The 
Buddhists journey to Adam’s Peak in Ceylon, and the 
Lamaists of Thibet travel adoringly to their Lha-Isa ; 
the Japanese have their pilgrim shrines amid perilous 
approaches at Istje, while the Chinese, who claim to 
be sons of the mountains, clamber with naked knees 
the rugged sides of Kicou-hou-chan. The pilgrimages 
of the Jews occupy many chapters of Holy Writ, for all 
their ancient worthies “ not having received the promises^ 
but seeing them afar off * * confessed that they were 
pilgrims and strangers." Christ confronted the pilgrim 
spirit perverted in the person of the woman of Samaria, 
at the eastern foot of Gerezim. She and her people 
rested their hopes in pilgrimages to their supposed 
to be sacred places, but the Saviour declared to her by 
Jacob’s well, truths, both grand and revolutionary, in 
these words : “ The hour * now is when the true 
worshiper shall worship the Father in spirit * * * not 
in this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” “ Go call thy hus- 
band and come hither. Whosoever drinketh the water 
I shall give shall never thirst.” There were volumes 
in the golden sentences and they plainly said no need 
to travel far to find the Everywhere God Who ever 
comes where men are to satisfy their every thirst. “ Go 
call thy husband.” Go to thy home and find the water 
of life through doing God’s will ; it is better to be a 
missionary than a pilgrim unless the pilgrim be also 
missioner. But the truths of that hour have found 
tardy acceptance among many. The children of 


The Pilgrim^ Crusader and Virgin. 39 

Jacob are pilgrims throughout the earth, and the dis- 
ciples of Christ, since His departure, have gone pil- 
griming often, as did their fathers before them. Con- 
stantine, the Roman emperor, and his mother, Helena, 
by example and precept, urged Christendom to 
re-embark in such pious journeys, and at the end of 
the first thousand years of its existence, Christianity 
had hosts of disciples actuated by the same old 
passion that sent religionists everywhere to seek 
shrines, fanes and blessings. Then the belief began 
to be held everywhere among Christians that the 
milennial period was at hand. , Multitudes abandoned 
friends, sold or gave away their possessions, and 
hastened toward the Holy Land, where they believed 
Jesus Christ was to appear to judge the world. Here 
two pilgrim tides, utterly opposed to each other, met ; 
the Christian and the Mohammedan. The followers of 
the False Prophet, like other men, were imbued with 
the pilgrim spirit. Some of these thought perfection 
could be attained only within the precincts of Babylon 
or Bagdad, and others sincerely believed that they 
could find peculiar nearness to heaven about the stone- 
walled Kaaba of Mecca. It was held to be not only a 
privilege but a duty, incumbent upon all, to take these 
religious journeys; hence men and women, young and 
old, undertook them. Even the decrepit were under 
the obligation, and they must either undertake the work, 
though failure by death were certain, or hire a proxy to 
go in their behalf. So was rolled up stupendously the 
numbers of pilgrim graves which have marked this earth 
of ours. The Christian pilgrims for a time thronged 
toward Palestine, first as a small stream, then as 


40 The Queen of the House of David. 

a torrent. Europe at large was aroused, and all im- 
pulses converged toward the Holy Sepulcher. The 
soldiers of the Cross soon added swords to their equip- 
ments ; the flashing of spears outshone the altar lights, 
and almost before they realized it the priests and pious 
pilgrims were transformed to mailed knights. There 
was a root to the impulse, and that the universally 
felt need of ideals, patterns, personages of heroic mold 
in all goodness, to show men how to live. The pil- 
grims turned their eyes to the worthies of the past, and 
soon came to believe that they could best imbibe their 
spirit amid their tombs and former abodes. Like 
most religionists they grew to believe God their 
especial friend, and they therefore soon came to feel 
that, against all odds, He would help them to victory. 
Then they easily grew to believe that death in their 
crusades would merit the martyr’s crown. Their cour- 
age was unbounded, for many went out with a passion 
to die in the cause they had embraced. The following 
crusades were marked by conflicts between Moslem 
and Christian, filled with fanatical and merciless fury, 
though both the opposing hosts claimed to be doing 
all they did in God’s name and under his especial di- 
rection. ‘‘ Deus vulty' God wills it,” was the war-cry 
of a mighty army, each of which bore on his banner and 
on his breast the sign of the Cross, the emblem eter- 
nally exalted by the Prince of Peace, who willingly died 
that others might live ; but these soldiers were bent on 
slaying those they could not convert. They were in a 
transitional state, passing from being pilgrims to being 
missionaries, but the course was a bloody one. They 
promoted their self-complacency by persuading them^ 


The Pilgrim^ Crusader and Virgin. 41 

selves that it was a heaven-offending wrong to continue 
to suffer heretics to occupy the places made sacred by 
the Saviour when in the world. Then multitudes of 
Christian priests taught that the pious needed free course 
to visit the holy places of the East, that they might up- 
build their faith and their grasp of theological abstrac- 
tions by beholding objects associated with the tenets 
they had adopted. The Moslems had no interest in 
these proceedings beyond a desire to thwart them. 
The Christians, to be sure, had the moral disadvantage 
of being invaders, but then censure of them is mitigated 
by the fact that Syria was stolen property to the Turk. 
The latter held it by the stern title deed of the sword. 
The reader of this summary will be chiefly advan- 
taged by remembering that this conflict was one of 
the mightiest efforts in the direction of missionary 
work ever attempted by man, and that being attempted 
by force it failed utterly. Now the Crusaders were 
believers in Christ and devoted to Mary. These 
facts awaken questions as to how, since the spirits of 
these twain are finally to conquer all hearts, their 
champions were so defeated ? The Crusaders desired to 
promote the glory of the Man of men and the woman 
of women, but sought it by aims only weakly worthy, 
and means often atrocious. It never matters to Christ’s 
kingdom who possesses His grave if He only possesses 
all hearts. The Crusaders, beginning with a warm 
sentiment of respect for the Virgin, suffered their 
sentimentality to run mad, and mad sentiment is ripe 
for folly and defilement. An opal, they say, will 
change its color when its wearer is sick; so a man 
wearing a priceless virtue on the sleeve of his creed, 


42 The Queen of the House of David, 

will find its luster bedimmed when evil sickens his 
heart. The Crusaders had grand banners, mottoes, war- 
cries and ideals, but they did not know how to hon- 
estly and truly apply them. Their efforts and results 
well serve to emphasize the truth that moral ad- 
vances are made with grander forces than those of the 
sword ; that in the end the heroes and heroines of the 
world’s regeneration will appear potent and regnant 
solely in the sweetness, truth and exaltation of per- 
sonal character. Crusader and Moslem, at heart, were 
each desirous of making the world better, but they each, 
in fact for a time made it fearfully worse. Probably 
the followers of the Cross and the followers of the 
Crescent would have been glad to have bestowed all 
kindness each on the other, if only the one would have 
accepted the creed of the other. But the humanity 
and charity of each were as to the other eclipsed 
utterly by a zeal for theories. There was need to both 
that there arise a harmonizing ideal. It would seem 
as if Providence suffered these opposing pilgrims to 
peel each other until each in sheer disgust was driven 
to seek some better way. An able historian affirms 
that the Crusades did not “change the fate of a single 
dynasty, nor the boundaries and relative strength of a 
nation ” — but they did leave a history, the contempla- 
tion of which affords rare thought-food. The conflict 
ended in the utter route and flight of the Christians. 
The tragedy ended at Acre, but there were left some 
things that took shape in mens’ thinking, and the world 
was made thereby better. The populations and pro- 
perties of Christain Europe had been squandered to a 
startling degree in these religious wars, and it was fit- 


The Pilgrim, Crusader and Virgin, 43 

ting that there be some return to compensate. The re- 
sult of all others, that grew out of the Crusades, and was 
indeed also a leading cause of their vigor, was the rising 
of the spirit of chivalry. The dawn of chivalry first begat 
brave fighting, but in time the chivalrous discovered 
a theater for their activity amid the amenities of peace. 
Chivalry was a rebound from the rugged, barbarous be- 
lief of the semi-civilized, whose trust was in brute force 
and whose constant dictum was, “ Might makes right.” 
Men became impressed with a spirit of tenderness, and, 
little by little the duty and beauty of the strong’s helping 
the weak dawned upon humanity. To be chivalrous, 
by the unwritten laws of custom, became the obligation 
of every man who sought popular respect. Chivalry was 
in the creed of the noble and brave, and men delighted 
to become the companions of lone pilgrims, patrons of 
beggars, protectors of children and defenders of women. 
Toward the gentler sex, the spirit of chivalry finely 
expressed itself by not only defending helpless females 
amid physical perils, but by according to woman- 
kind distinguished courtesy, refined politeness, and 
all those proper respects that so appropriately garnish 
and ornament the social intercourse of the sexes in pro- 
perly cultivated societies. Before the advent of this 
chivalric time, women had been deemed as generally 
every way inferior to men ; chiefly desirable as minis- 
ters to the necessities or appetites of their lords; useful 
as mothers, but worthy of very little respect, confi- 
dence or lasting admiration. The dawn of this new 
and fine gallantry was a step toward woman’s disin- 
thrallment. Chivalry tried to express itself in the 
Cru3ades ; defeated^ its ardor still burned^ and Europe 


44 Queen of the House of David, 

felt its beneficent glow long after the conflict for Syrian 
sepulchers had ceased. And here it is of the utmost 
importance that the reader forget not the key fact, 
that before the advent of the attractive spirit of chiv- 
alry, men’s minds in Christian communities were pro- 
foundly penetrated and wondrously incited by a deep 
and new regard for the Queenly woman Mary,^ the 
mother of J esus ! She had been almost rediscovered. 
By a common consent, Christian pulpits had begun 
sounding her praises, as the ideal woman ; a woman 
worthy of the veneration and emulation of all. The 
various religious communities vied with each other in 
doing her honor. The Cistercians declared her purity 
by wearing white, the Servi wore black to commem- 
orate her touching sorrows, and other bodies elected as 
their distinguishing badges, various garbs or signs 
solely to proclaim their allegiance to their ideal 
woman. A popular moral coronation of Mary resulted. 
The Crusaders outran all others in their adulation of, 
and committal to, the wondrous woman. They were 
the first to call her “ Our Lady.” She was THE Lady 
of the hearts of all. These chivalrous soldiers to her 
spoke their pious vows, from her besought holy favors, 
and in her name, with sacred oaths, committed their 
all to effort to wrest all Palestine from the enemies of 
Mary’s Son."^ Now these millions of men were not 
mad, nor in pursuit of a phantom. It was all very real 
to them. They desired to express a long pent-up nat- 
ural feeling, and they found an object all satisfactory 
in Mary. The Crusaders returned finally and for 
good from battling with Moslem ; they returned 
* Jamison, 


The Pilgrini^ Crusader and Virgin. 45 

thoroughly, disastrously defeated ; but with their 
love for Mary all aglow. When they first called her 
Our Lady,'' there may have been an admixture of 
irreverence and dilettante in the thought of many; 
they were purged of these in the hurricane of battle 
and in the terrors of that inhospitable land of their 
pilgrimages. Amid trials, far away from his home, 
often in severe want, frequently confronting slavery 
and death, the Christian knight while adding Ave 
Marie ” to his“ Patre NostreT learned to think of the 
Madonna as his mother. Missing the latter keenly, 
worshiping the other unfeignedly, woman took a high 
throne in his esteem. Sword conquest began to seem 
to the war-wearied soldier very insignificant as com- 
pared to a ministry of comfort, peace and good will. 
The defeated Crusaders returned to scatter through all 
Europe a new gospel of humanity. They exalted the 
Queen of David’s line and forgot to recount the for- 
tunes of war in the East in expounding the dawning 
beauties of the woman that entranced them and the 
queenship this ideal had gained over their minds. So 
they prepared multitudes of the sterner sex for a last- 
ing belief in the worthfulness of true womanhood at 
its best. The Christian world was ripe for such a 
revival, when the priests began to thunder ‘‘ On to 
Jerusalem!” but men needed not so much war as 
conversion ; not so much relics and tombs as loving 
principles exemplified. It is wonderful how conver- 
sion womanizes some men. That is a triumph of the 
Spiritual over the sensual, the beautiful over the gross. 
It will make a man of brutal, selfish fiber, in time, as 
tender as a mother toward her child and as self-deny- 


46 The Queen of the House of David, 

ing as a maid toward her lover. The Crusaders started 
out to rescue the tomb of the dead Saviour from un- 
believers and failed, but they returned to herald the 
rennaissance of Mary, the disenslaving of woman ; 
to call the state, the home and individuals to all the 
refinements which the exaltation of such an ideal of 
necessity offered. Toward this advening the rising 
spirit of chivalry was bending the finest hearts when 
the clarions of war, sounded from altar and baptistry, 
summoned all to raise the red banner against the 
Moslem. Right here it is worthy of notice that God’s 
providence presented other, though allied, principles in 
the conflict against the Orientals. Two pilgrim hosts, 
thinking to choose their own ways, were wisely led to 
better goals than they knew. The Turk presented the 
throng of the harem as his family ; the Christian was 
committed to the union of only two in holy wedlock. 
One party presented a banner with a Cross, forever the 
emblem of self-sacrifice ; the other the Crescent, 
emblem of youthfulness increasing, a hint ever of the 
hope of endless lust, whether borne of the master of a 
harem or by the heathen follower of the ancient moon- 
horned Astarte. The last at Acre, by the Syrian bor- 
der of the Mediterranean Sea, the Saracen hugged 
victory and the Cross-bearers were utterly routed. So 
reads human history, but in truth the defeat was only 
apparent and local. The followers of the Crescent, 
holding the creed of lust and making pleasure of sense 
their end came surely toward their destruction when suc- 
cesses encouraged them in their courses ; the followers 
of the Cross, on the other hand, had within some 
germs of truth, life-giving in themselves and top beauti- 


47 


The Pilgrim^ Crusader and Virgin. 

ful to be suffered to die from the earth. Trial and defeat 
watered these germs and the knightly hosts returned 
to Europe by thousands to proclaim finer doctrines 
than those by which the priest had incited them to 
war. The returning soldiers were transformed from 
pilgrims to missionaries, from being taught to teach- 
ing, from restorers of Palestine’s graves to restorers of 
European society. Of the “Teutonic Knights of Saint 
Mary,” a fine and representative order, an impartial 
historian writes ; “ They defended Christianity against 
the barbarians of Eastern Europe.” “After many 
bloody encounters introduced German manners, lan- 
guage and morals.” Of the Knighthood, as a whole, 
says another, “ the institution that could breed such 
characters as these, obviously rendered an enduring ser- 
vice to humanity. Its spirit lives on, offering examples 
which the young still welcome in their joyous, dreamy 
days. The ideal still remains, purified by time, freed 
from its frailties, and aids in fashioning modern senti- 
ment to the conception and admiration of the Chris- 
tian gentleman.” 


CHAPTER lit, 


ARMAGEDDON; THE KEY AND SICKLE. 

“From the moist regions of the western star. 

The wandering hermits wake the storm of war ; 
Their limbs all iron, their souls all flame ; 

A countless host the Red Cross warriors came.” 

— Reginald Heber. 


S a traveler climbs the mountain to see the 
sunrise, so he that would overlook the past 
or present must needs clamber to some 
lofty point of vision in a significant era or 
historic location. There are two plains in Syria ; one 
lying along the Mediterranean, the other jutting out 
from the base of the former toward Jordan; the two 
together, in shape very like a sickle, have witnessed 
events wonderfully instructive and determinate to the 
student of the philosophy of time’s course. These 
two plains are known respectively as Esdraelon and 
Acre. The sea and the mountains give these plains 
their sickle shape, and the geographical outlines are 
constantly suggestively before the mind as one remem- 
bers these plateaus not only as the highways but the 
battle-fields of the ancient nations. For while, as one 
says, “ the face of nature smiles ” — “ no spot on earth 
more fertile,” he also says “ no field on earth was so 




Armageddon ; the Key and Sickle. 40 

fattened by the blood of the slain.” There the Philis- 
tines, the Ptolemys, Antiochus, the Maccabees, Herod, 
Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, Salah-ed-din, Cceur-de- 
Lion, Melek-Seruf and Napoleon, each in turn, put 
their ambitions and their beliefs to the stern arbitra- 
ment of swords. There the kingdom of the House of 
David struggled for life ; there the splendid dream of 
the Crusaders ended as a nightmare. 

As a jewel in the haft of the sickle, at the northerly 
end of the plain by the sea, sits the city of Acre. This 
city compels the attention of the preacher and student 
of history and gives theme to him who blends symbol 
into song. Acre gave its name to its adjacent country 
round about, and though both city and plain witnessed 
many a change of master in the past, those changing 
masters, to gratify their whims or strengthen their 
policies from time to time, giving the places various 
names, the last one has persisted. It survived, proba- 
bly, largely because associated with a humane senti- 
ment. The Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem named 
it in honor of J eanne de Arc, the martyr maid of France. 
From the city itself one may look out over the sea- 
highway of nations ; from the drear and lofty moun- 
tains of its surrounding country one may look over 
many memorable places. Acre was often called the 
‘‘Key of Palestine ” by the soldier strategists and by 
the chroniclers of events. To their testimony is added 
that of the inspired writers and prophets who made it 
their key and mountain of outlook frequently. 

These plains, dotted all about by sacred places, 
memorable for two great victories ; Barak over the 
Canaanites and Gideon over the Midianites ; and two 


50 The Queen of the House of David. 

great disasters, the death of Saul and the death of 
Josiah, became to the Jews the symbol of the conflict 
of right and wrong. Prophetically, and in the serene 
hope that righteousness at last would prevail, the plain 
was called Armageddon, “the Mountain of the Gos- 
pel.” We hear the rapt Zechariah thus descanting : 
“ The Lord also shall save the glory of the house of 
David and the house of David shall be as God.” “And 
it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to 
destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of sup- 
plications; and they shall look upon me whom they 
have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one 
mourrieth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for 
him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.” 

The prophet looked forth to the Pentecostal day of 
salvation and the assured victories of David’s great 
successor. Following this ancient seer, John the be- 
loved, in the Visions of the Apocalypse repeats, these 
oracles. During the wars of the Crusaders, Acre was 
sometimes in their possession and sometimes held by 
their Turkish foes. In the year 1 191 Richard the Lion 
Heart wrested it from the infidel leader Salah-ed-din. 
The Christians held it firmly until 1291, the time when 
the last wave of the Crusader advance ebbed, in bloody 
defeat, from the shores of the Holy Land. For two 
hundred years the believer of the West and the Moslem 
grappled with each other in deadly conflict ; war’s for- 
tunes often changing, but the awful price in human 
misery and human blood was inexorably exacted at 
every stage of the conflict. Acre was the focus toward 


Armageddoft ; the Key and Sickle, 51 

which the eddying tides ever and anon moved ; therefore 
it saw not only the end but the worst of the Crusades: 

Our story begins A. D. 1291 at Acre, the Key of Pal- 
estine, in Armageddon, “ the mountain of the Gospel.'’ 
The situation may be briefly depicted : Acre was filled 
with a mixed and un-homogeneous population. There 
were the ubiquitous Galilean traders, without politics ; 
shrewd to the last degree in traffic and courtly as a 
Parisian ; there some secret, sullen, silent enemies of 
the Christian invaders, awaiting the coming end ; there 
hundreds of those camp-following nondescript good 
lord and good devil ” characters, and there the rem- 
nants of the Crusader armies. The latter were not 
only diminished as to numbers but greatly degraded in 
moral tone. Their warfare had been belittled to a de- 
fense and a retreat. The adventurers were uppermost ; 
courts-martial, intrigues and fanfaronade were their oc- 
cupation daily. Prince Edward, the Christian leader, 
had made a sworn treaty with the Moslems long before 
this time ; but his pious followers had quickly, wickedly 
violated it. Thereupon the Sultan, Kha-tel, had made 
an irrevocable treaty with himself, sealed with the most 
awful oath he could register, that he would never tire 
until he had exterminated the last of the Western 
invaders now circumscribed and besieged in Acre. 
With 200,000 dusky followers the Sultan besieged the 
last stronghold of the Crusaders. The hearts of the 
defenders sank within them, and scores sought safety 
in homeward flight, loading down every vessel bound 
for Europe. Among the first fugitives was the chief 
leader, Hugh de Lusignan, who wore the phantom title, 
‘‘ King of Jerusalem.” He preferred the safety of dis- 


§2 The Queen of the House of David. 

tant Cyprus to the doubtful regality which was over- 
shadowed with nearing death. Only 12,000 were left 
to represent the Crusade cause which once mustered 
millions. May 18, 1291, the devoted city was stormed 
by the Turks ; an entrance was effected and a murder- 
ous carnage, heaping the streets with the dead, and red- 
ding the foam of the moaning sea, followed. But thete 
was no easy victory to the Moslem, for the steady, vig- 
orous, brilliant, desperate fighting of the knights, lay- 
ing low piles of their foes for every one of themselves 
that fell, compelled the respect of the Sultan’s host. 
The Turks attempted to gain a surrender by offering 
bribes ; these failing, terms were offered. The latter, 
which included permission for the Crusade remnant to 
depart the country in peace, were accepted. But the 
Sultan, taught, if he needed the lesson, by the perfidy 
of Prince Edward’s Christian truce-breakers, quickly 
broke his promise of safe conduct. Though the re- 
treating band was in no way party to the wrong he 
sought to avenge, they were mercilessly ambuscaded. 
There followed another struggle to the death, a hand- 
ful against a host and but few succeeded in cutting 
their way through the cordon of death. History has 
often recounted the preceding events up to the point ; 
from this point it is proposed to lead the reader along 
the career of a fragment tossed out of the foregoing 
whirlpool of disaster. 


• CHAPTER IV; 

• SIR CHARLEROY; THE SOLDIER C)F FORTUNE AND 
KNIGHT OF SAINT MARY. 


'Tis quickly seen, 

Whate’er he be, ’twas not what he had been ; 

That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last. 

And spoke of passion but of passion past.” 
****** 

“ Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme. 

How woke he from the wildness of his dream ? 

Alas ! he told not, but he did awake. 

To curse the withered heart that would not break.’* 


HE course of the knights fleeing from Acre 
was turned toward Nazareth. There being 
but one way open to them, they took that 
way quickly and with one accord. The 
fugitives from Acre, represented various knightly 
orders, but they were disorganized, without any definite 
destination and without an authorized leader. Among 
them was Sir Charleroy de Griffin, a knight famed for 
valor, a central and commanding personage ; one that 
would have attracted attention in almost any assembly 
of men. As he went, so went the rest of the fleeing 
Christians, and when he reined in his panting steed,. 



54 The Qiieen of the Mouse of Davidi 

after a time, at the top of a fir-crested knoll not fat* 
from Nazareth, the knights following him did likewise. 
Then they drew around him in a semi-circle, without 
command, and simultaneously, as if to solicit his 
direction. They had followed the course he took 
because he took it, and now with one accord they 
halted because he had done so. There is to some a 
subtile influence that makes them leaders of men ; so 
the disorganized Crusaders, by an unvoiced but fully 
expressed concession, admitted the leadership of this 
dashing horseman. Some may designate this a 
triumph of personal magnetism, but be that as it may, 
it was a fact that Sir Charleroy was chief. Sir Char- 
leroy, just at the time of the foregoing incident, pre- 
sented an admirable study for the philosopher or 
painter. From his saddle he was able to overlook 
leagues of bright landscape, but he could not claim the 
protection of a foot of it ; for the first time in his life 
he yearned for home, now a spreading sea, and a wall 
of death shut it out from him apparently for ever ; by 
circumstances absolute sovereign almost of the men 
about him, but doubt and danger were confounding all 
his ability to give commands. He fell into a train of 
thought, leaving his comrades to converse with their 
pawing steeds and to questionings within themselves 
as to the future. Sir Charleroy had reached an 
eminence in life, one of those points of out-look where 
a man’s past meets him and demands review, that it 
may explain the present. He believed that he had 
reached very nearly the end of his career, and in that 
belief he began to weigh it for what it was worth. 
In imagination he saw one writing the story of his life. 


Sir Charleroy ; the Soldier of Fortu 7 ie, 55 

Sir Charleroy, the refugee, began faithfully to review 
Sir Charleroy, the wayward youth, pleasure-seeker and 
reckless man. The former dictated mentally to the 
imaginary scribe : “Write, Charleroy de Griffin was 
the son of a stalwart French Baron, used to duels and 
trained to war. The boy inherited from his father a 
splendid physique, of which he was unduly proud, and 
a restless disposition that he never sincerely asked God 
to control. By the death of the baron, his son, an 
infant, was left to the sole tutelage of his English 
mother. The latter was of high birth, by nature a 
noble woman, and in every way worthy of a better son 
than the one whom he had turned out to be. She had 
idolized her brawny spouse in his lifetime, and when 
she had recovered from the shock his death caused, her 
yearning heart, little by little, turned from the idol in 
the tomb to the child he had left her. Ere long she 
lived again in the rapture of a love all absorbing, all 
bestowing, all ruling. She lavished her affection on 
the youth, not because he was particularly lovable, for 
he was not, but because he was the only one left her 
to love, and she was so constituted that she must love; 
the necessity of loving to her made it easy. 

“Then there were many things in the features and 
form of her son that reminded her of the man who, in 
brighter days, had won entirely her maiden heart and 
her young wife love. The child was wont to wonder 
why his mother embraced him as she did sometimes, 
with a wondering, startled, wild, passionate embrace ; 
but when he got older he discerned the meaning of 
these outbreaks. He knew that the mother-heart was 
baying a vision of past wifehood, memory’s grace-givep 


56 


The Queen of the House of David. 


solace of widowhood. Besides this the embraces were 
her appealings or warnings to death ; her heart sud- 
denly seizing as if to shelter and save her last and only 
idol ; for the thought would sometimes come with 
shadows deep enough, that perhaps the boy might 
also die. Such love would have been a prized wealth 
and blessing to some ; but in this case, on the one hand, 
it unfitted this mother for the proper disciplining of this 
son, and this son though, sometimes, when his conceit 
permitted it, realizing that the love was given, not won, 
began to expect it as his due or despise it for its lavish- 
ness. In due time he entered the period expressively 
designated, ‘ The monster age.’ This is the time 
when expanding young life has outgrown the tender- 
ness of infancy and failed of putting on manly and 
womanly graces ; a time when there is a mighty ambi- 
tion to put on the characteristics of adult life and a 
mighty lack of ability gracefully to wear them. At this 
period, perhaps, the majority of youths of both sexes, 
are interesting chiefly for what they have been, or what 
it is hoped they will be. They feel, conscious of their 
growing powers, great self-conceit, and with their 
growth comes an expansion of their capacities and wants. 
The plenitude of their wantings makes them avaricious, 
hence parsimonious toward others of every thing, espe- 
cially of gratitude. Reverence for elders, respect for 
fathers, holy regard for mothers, tenderness toward 
women, chief charms of youth, are buried in the tomb of 
other virtues by great, selfish, ugly demons of desire. 
The monster age came to Charleroy in its full virulence, 
but his mother discerned little of his monstrosity ; 
)yhat she did discern, all unasked, she condoned, She 


Sir Charleroy ; the Soldier of Fortune, 57 

believed all things, hoped all things good of him, 
although seldom comforted by an expression or act of 
gratitude on his part. She was to be pitied; but it 
may be said that the lad was to be pitied almost as 
much as herself. It was the old story over; she uncon- 
sciously went about destroying her own happiness and 
though she would have willingly died if need be in his 
behalf, she harmed him beyond estimate by her indul- 
gent loving. Then the youth was surrounded by those 
who sought the favor of the baroness by constantly 
sounding in her ears, and in* the ears of the boy, praises 
of the dead baron. They told of his daring, they des- 
canted upon his adventures, his powers, his wisdom. 
He was the widow’s idol, and the incense was grateful 
to her, but the worst of it was that they befooled the 
lad by continually assuring him that he was the image 
of his father, and surely destined to equal, if not sur- 
pass, his sire in deeds of valor. A dangerous burden is 
wealth ; whether it come as great name or great inteh 
lect, great physical strength or as much gold, it is a 
fateful load which few can gracefully support, The 
youth had wealth in all the foregoing directions ; if he 
had had a mother whose love loved wisely enough tQ 
save, if it need be by pain, he might have been saved ; 
but her love infatuated her. The youth’s folly brought 
him frequently into shameful entanglements ; but she 
extricated him each time. Nobody ever heard of her 
even rebuking him ; as to chastising him, that were a 
thing abhorrent to her thoughts. His face always 
bespoke his pardon in advance with her. She would 
have smitten her husband’s corpse, as it lay in its 
coffin, as soon as she would have sniitten the one 


58 


The Queen of the House of David, 


whose features constantly reminded her of him her 
heart had held most dear. Then she hoped, with a 
mother’s large-hearted faith, that each escapade would 
be the last. But as the youth grew older his acts were 
bolder. Again and again, without notice and with 
heartless inconsiderateness, he left his home to pursue 
some adventure, and again and again, mother’s love 
followed him, ever to find him at last in some sore 
plight, and then quickly to forgive him. By the time 
Charleroy had reached his majority, the family fortune 
had been severely tried and depleted in paying the 
penalty of his follies. He himself had become an old 
young man, with too many gray hairs and too much 
experience for one of his years. 

“ At that time, a few enthusiasts having determined 
to make one last effort to secure the Holy Sepulcher, 
Charleroy de Griffin ardently enlisted in the pre- 
doomed enterprise, allured largely by its very desper- 
ateness. The crusade spirit was then a fitful dying 
flame throughout Europe. England and France were 
left practically alone to furnish the men and the money 
for the last crusade. Prince Edward of France was its 
leader, and De Griffin, having in his veins the blood of 
both of the supporting nations, a French name, a 
splendid physique, together with a fearless, dashing 
temperament, was enthusiastically hailed to the enlist- 
ment and pushed forward to leadership. ‘ Sir Char- 
leroy de Griffin ! ’ smilingly called out Prince Edward, 
the day of review, before the one set for departure. 
The young man’s comrades, many of whom had been 
his associates in former days of wassail, hearing the 
Prince’s word, shouted put with pne accprd, ‘ Knighted ! 


Sir Charier oy ; the Soldier of Fortune, 59 

The prince has knighted de Griffin! Hurrah for Sir 
Charleroy ! ' The day following Sir Charleroy bowed 
his head, as he stood on the quay ready to embark, to 
receive the benediction of a bishop. As the sacrist 
laid his hands on the young man’s head, the latter, 
throwing back his cloak, reverently touched the cross 
he had attached to his bosom with his jeweled sword- 
hilt. The young knight for a little while was very 
complacent; for he was enjoying a sentimental emo- 
tion of virtue, arising from sophistries with which his 
mind toyed. Some way he felt he had become a sol- 
dier of the holy Christ, and somehow it seemed to 
him he was making atonement for past follies by now 
placing himself side by side with the pious and 
noble. Though in reality only bent on seeking excite- 
ment, adventure, change, he looked forward to the re- 
wards of conscience belonging alone to the penitent, 
and to a possible public canonizing as one going forth 
to die for God. A little piety paralleling one’s own 
desires is of^en made to do great service in silencing 
the clamors from within. His proud, tearful mother 
was by his side. Passionately she kissed his cross, 
then his brow, then his eyes and then his lips; leaving 
on the brow the glistening, dewy jewels that told the 
story of the heart which bade him stay, yet go. The 
young knight was for once in his life very serious, but 
tearless. After all this, in rapid steps, followed the 
disaster at Acre ; the desperate struggle outside the 
city ; the flight toward Nazareth. Sir Charleroy finally 
stands between the sea and the city, a mother’s idol 
ready to be broken ; at twenty-five, near the apparent 
apex and end of a life, having had great opportunities, 


6o The Queen of the House of David. 

now, with all lost, he stands there an epitome of par, 
adoxes. He had made life a pursuit of pleasure only 
to find the pursuit ending in misery ; he had enlisted 
to serve the Prince of Peace, but that service he had 
undertaken with the sword ; he had championed, as he 
said, the cause of Christ, the all-conquering, but he 
meets utter defeat. He had taken for his patron saint 
Mary, after years of libertinism. He elected Mary, he 
said, because his mother was so like her. But Sir 
Charleroy’s mother demoralized her son by over-in- 
dulgence, while Mary, though informed by Gabriel 
that her offspring was divine, followed her child as a 
true mother, with the divinely appointed authority of 
a mother, serenely, constantly directing his career up 
to the feast of Jerusalem, where he began to reveal his 
divine commission. Even then, motherhood affirmed 
its rights in the very presence of God manifest, in the 
question : ‘ Son^ why hast thou dealt thus Nor was the 
right challenged, for ^ he went down and was subject to ’ 
father and mother! " At this point Sir Charleroy ceased 
mentally tracing his own career, and lifting his eyes 
looked intently toward Nazareth. “Ah,” he said, but 
so that none could hear his words, “ my mother loyed 
as many another, in part selfishly, for the joy of 
abandoned love, and I squander that patrimony like a 
spendthrift, to my harm. Mary’s love for her son 
was like his for the world, a constant self-abnegation. 
That love survives as an inspiration to the world. By 
these contrasts I explain my failure in life, and the 
present is the natural sequence of the past.” 


CHAPTER V. 


NAZARETH. 

** This is indeed the blessed Mary’s land, 

Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer! 

All hearts are touched and softened by her name; 

Alike the bandit' with the bloody hand. 

The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant, 

The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer. 

Pay homage to her as one ever present.” 

— Longfellow — “ Go/deu Legetid," 

I walked along the top of the hills overlooking Nazareth. A 
glorious scene opened on the view. The air was perfectly serene 
and clear. I remained for some hours lost in contemplation of the 
wide prospect and the events connected with the scene. One ot 
the most beautiful and sublime prospects on earth,” 

Robinson’s Biblical Researches. 

HE avenging Turks easily persuaded them- 
selves that they could serve God better by 
participating in the sacking of fallen Acre 
than by pursuing the conquered, fleeing 
Christian knights ; so they let the latter escape 
inland, while they themselves returned to the pillage. 
Ere long, by stealth, good fortune and Providen- 
tial leading, the fugitives arrived unmolested at 
the top of a hill, overlooking the little city of 
Nazareth, forever memorable as having been once the 
earthly abiding place of Jesus and Mary. On the way 



62 The Queen of the House of David, 

thither scarcely a sentence had been spoken, for each 
felt that murmuring would be harmful, mirth inoppor- 
tune. They chose their course indifferently, all fob 
lowing Sir Charleroy de Griffin because he rode bravely 
and onward. The fugitives paused, partly sequestered 
by the shrubbed hillock, forgetting for a time all else in 
admiration of the outspreading panorama in view. 
Heaven and earth were smiling at each other ; thou- 
sands of leagues of sky were filled with the raptured 
songs of larks, while as echo and challenge of the 
songs from above, the thrush and robin of the grass 
knoll and thicket responded. From the plains of 
El Battaf on the north to Esdraelon on the south 
Nature, God’s flower queen, had decked the earth every- 
where with blossoms of pinks, tulips and marigolds. 

“ Those dusky cowards,” spoke Sir Charleroy, 
** though numbering ten to one, will not seek us here ; 
they'll wait an opportunity to ambuscade us.” 

WeVe broken our knight’s pledge, never to flee 
more than the distance of four French acres from 
a foe, and yet methinks we’ve made them respect 
our swords ; that’s somethi^ to say, though we’ve 
not made them respect our creed.” It was a Knight 
of the Golden Cross that spoke. 

Sir Charleroy continued, while his eyes turned 
toward the city : “ I thirst for the waters of a fount 
in Nazareth as did David once for one in Bethlehem.” 

For all of our getting at it, Nazareth’s water might 
as well be in Ethiopia,” spoke a Hospitaler. 

“ I've a yearning that comes near to sending me on 
a charge into the city.” > 

“That would te a hot pursuit of death surely.” 


Nazareth. 


63 


A fair one, then, since death has been long 
pursuing us.” After a moment’s pause Sir Charleroy 
continued : 

“Ah, death ! None can escape, none overtake him ; 
see we are his prisoners now, yet he tantalizes us by a 
show of immunity. As a sarcophagus is let down by 
suspending ropes in tedious stages, with jogglings and 
pauses, into the grave, so passes each through perils and 
sickenings from life to death. No, no, an undue fear 
of death intoxicates us until pilantasmagoria possess 
the brain. We call these hopes ; they are delusive ! 
But will any of you follow for a charge down to the 
Virgin’s fountain ? We can not more than die ; that 
we must soon, in any event. I think I could die more 
complacently, having cooled my thirst where she was 
wont to cool hers.” 

“ Ugh,” exclaimed the Templar, with a shudder of 
disgust, “ the fountain flows out through an old stone 
coffin ! By my plume ! \fhile drinking there I’d be 
fancying that the ghost of the one robbed of his last 
house were leering at me and reveling in the thought 
that I’d soon be poor and thirstless as he. Verily 
the flavor of a drink depends much on the goblet ! ” 

“We may have plenty of miserable fancies, if we 
only court such; for me. Templar, I prefer to comfort 
myself by cheerier thoughts ; while I drank there. I’d 
think of the coolings of death’s streams ; of her, that 
at this fountain slaked her body’s thirst and from the 
chalice of death drank serenely at last. My sword, 
the gift of my king, after having shed torrents of 
blood, hangs uselessly at my side. It seems cruel as 
powerless ; ay, *tis hateful ’ My mother gave me, on 


64 The Queen of the House of David. 

my departure, better gifts by far; tears, kisses, undy- 
ing love, and the charge to call on Mary if ever evil 
befell me. The latter I know not how to do ; but 
still my weak faith, methinks, would be helped to 
cry ‘Mother’ to God, if I could only stand where 
that mother stood who won the first love of the 
infant Jesus, the last anxious thoughts of the God 
man.” 

“ Sir Charleroy is unusually pious to - night ; but 
alas, though I’ve been taught to say our church’s 
calling on ‘ the Virgin most faithful,’ ‘Virgin 
most merciful,’ ‘ Help of the Christian,’ ‘ Lady of 
Victories,’ I can not use those phrases here. Where’s 
the help, the mercy, the victory now? Litany^ 

belongs to England ! ” 

“ We are in our present plight because we have 
won heaven’s neglect through having more vices than 
graces, probably.” 

“ Whatever the cause, the mocking disappointment 
is apparent. It is nigh thirteen hundred years since 
the Holy son and His mother began proclaiming and 
exemplifying the White Kingdom here. Now in all 
this land of theirs, we thirteen, fateful number, alone 
are left of those who openly own His cause. Yea, and 
the city where He grew in favor, these nature-blessed 
plains whose flowers gave Him picture sermons, are 
all filled with burrowing monsters eternally at war 
with Him and His.” 

“ Faith will rest until assured that the Promiser is 
dead, and that can never be. Sir Knight.” 

“ My faith staggers at the sights of Nazareth. Chief, 
look yonder.” 


Nazareth. 


/ 


65 


The knights all now called Sir Charleroy chief, when 
addressing him. 

“ At what ? ” 

‘‘The ruins!” 

“ Ah, all that’s left of our Crusader church. They 
say it was built on the^yery spot where Mary fell 
fainting, when she saw Ae^azarenes in wrath drag- 
ging her son away to cast him down from the precipice 
to death. But He escaped, though the church since 
built did not 1 ” 

“True; therefore it seems to me that the hand 
on time’s dial turns backward. This city is filled 
with creatures having hearts as hard as the lime- 
stone walls of the cave-like houses they fittingly 
inhabit. If Christ and His Mother were again on 
earth as before, mercy’s ministers, the present inhabi- 
tants of Nazareth would surpass His ancient persecu- 
tors in the zeal with which they would drag not only 
Him but His mother to the cliffs.” 

“ Over the door of yon ruined church, some hand 
of faith carved the word ‘ Victory ! ’ The word is there 
yet, and though the hand that carved it is dead, the 
faith which prompted it hath victory assured it.” 

“ ‘ Victory^’ in ruins ! A meaningless boast, as it 
seems to me, Sir Charleroy. Such victory as ours; 
shadowy and very distant ! ” 

At that moment one of .the Templars, who had been 
secretly praying behind a cactus hedge, drew near and 
the Hospitaler addressed him : 

“ Brother, any token ? ” 

“ Praise Jehovah ! yes, of peace.” 

How came it ? ” 


66 


The Queen of the House of David. 


In my communings, God brought to my mind how 
the wondrous Deborah, not far from here, pushed the 
pusillanimous Barak from his refuge among the pista- 
cas and oaks, from waverings to courage and to glorious 
victory over God’s foes.” 

“ A happy thought ; ' th^tars on their course fought 
against Sisera ! ’ ” ^ J 

“ Barak was called the ‘ thunderbolt,’ but Deborah 
was the ‘lightning,’ The lightning gave force to the 
bolt and God to the lightning.” 

Sir Charleroy, catching the last sentence, joined in 
the debate : 

“ Gentlemen, there is another lesson on the brow of 
that history; it is, that women, having more trust, 
cleave closer to God in peril than do men. Men are 
in a panic when their devices fail ; women have fewer 
devices to fail, hence are less easily confounded. For 
that reason God sent out our race in pairs.” 

“ Hermon’s breast holds the last ray of the setting 
sun,” remarked the Golden Cross. 

“And the Transfiguration of Christ is recalled! I 
think some angel of God is holding the sunlight there 
for our instruction, now,” exclaimed the chief. 

“Our instruction?” queried the Templar. “I do 
not discern its meaning; campaigning I fear has 
dulled my brain.” 

“ The Son of Mary, on yon mount, met Elijah, repre- 
sentative of the prophets, Moses, representative of the 
law; both called from the deathless land to proclaim 
the fulfillment of all prophecy and law through His 
coming passion. 

“ And still I question how this applies to us ?” 


Nazareth. 


67 


• “ A Knight of the Red Cross should easily discern 
that suffering unto death for truth’s sake is the way, 
all prophecy declares that a reign of law transforming 
things to spiritual splendor shall at last come to earth." 

“ Ah, Sir Charleroy, the interpretation is entrancing ; 
but why did the glory ne«i»tD fade into night, and to 
be followed by Gethsemaire-and Calvary?" 

“Life is but a series of temporary glimpses of the 
glory that shall be revealed. Night and cloud come 
and go, yet the sun never dies." 

“ But, Sir Charleroy, was it not hard that the loving 
Immanuel should be forced to bide these pangs though 
ever pursuing true righteousness? " 

“Yea, Templar, but the glory of the Transfiguration 
came to all that group while Jesus prayed ; as the 
angel hastened to minister when Gethsemane was 
darkest. These things teach that heaven watches its 
own, with succor according to want ; great light at 
hand to baffle great darkness and royal answers for 
anxious prayers ! " 

“You mean. Sir Charleroy, that we few, surrounded 
by a sea of enemies, in an inhospitable land, far from 
home, should despise each despairing thought ? " 

“Good Templar, I am certain of this, anyway: 
Suffering for the right has full reward, for after passion 
as Christ’s, so to His followers there comes the 
ascension." 

“ Amen," fervently ejaculated several surrounding 
knights, and Sir Charleroy felt the glow that he felt 
that time the English bishop blessed him. 

As they thus communed, the sun had quietly sunk 
^Qwn into the far-off Mediterranean^ flooding the >yest 


68 


The Queen of the House of David. 


with light like molten gold. Doubtless one thought 
came to each at the sight ; for all smiled sadly when 
one remarked : “ The West is very beautiful to-night ! ” 
They thought with deep yearnings of home. But the 
darkness quickly drew over the scene and the song or 
the baleful nightingales began to start forth here and 
there from thickets wh^hy^in the darkness, appeared 
like plumes of mourning on acres of black velvet. 
One knight, for a while entranced by the grim, gloomy 
spectacle, shuddered ; then looked up as if to say : 
“When will the moon rise? the darkness is oppres- 
sive ! ” Another tried to cheer his comrades by cry- 
ing : “ England’s songsters know us and come to sing 
us into hopefulness ! ” 

“ Men, to rest; you’ll need it.” It was Sir Charleroy 
who spoke. Responsibility made him motherly. 

“ Let us revel awhile in memories of better days,” 
replied the Templar. 

“But listen; do you not hear afar off something 
like the moaning of the winds before a storm?” 

“What of it ? A storm could add little to our 
misery.” 

“ The sound you hear is the cry of jackal and wolf ; 
our omens. Forget now all unnerving thoughts of 
home and steel yourselves to meet hard fortune. 
For a while rest. Rest is now our wisdom; night, 
our mother; for a time in safety she will swaddle us 
within her black garments. And then ” 

“ Even so, good Sir Charleroy, and I’m think- 
ing this is her last visit to us. She has come, I 
guess, to lead us to the portals of eternal day.” 

I say good-night to you, cpmradeSj it will be 


Nazareth. 


69 


with the expectation of next saying good-morning 
where the wicked cease from troubling,” solemnly said 
the Golden Cross. 

“ But,” interrupted the Hospitaler, “while the pulse 
beats we have a mortgage on time and a duty to plan 
to live.” 

“Bravely said; now tell us how to plan,” exclaimed 
several knights. 

“ Merge all our orders into one, for the present ; elect 

a leader, and ” The Hospitaler paused, for he 

could not guess the needs or course of the future. 
But the knights quickly acquiesced in the unity of 
action proposed. 

“ Who shall lead ? ” was the next question. 

“I nominate,” shouted the Hospitaler, “the one 
whom we all believe must be under the especial care 
of the good angels of these places sacred to all rever- 
ing mother Mary.” 

The knights, with one voice, responded, “ Sir Char- 
leroy de Griffin, Teutonic Knight of the Order of St. 
Mary ! ” 

The little band dared their danger for a moment by 
a spontaneous cheer. 

“ We have no priest to anoint the chief of the 
Refugees, but with God to witness, let each who would 
ratify the choice place hilt to shield, as an oath of 
service and defense.” 

Every hilt rang against Sir Charleroy’s shield, as the 
Hospitaler ceased speaking. 

“Comrades,” said Sir Charleroy, “I thank you for 
your confidence in this hour when the issue is life or 
^eath. Let us seek the GocJ of battles,” The knights 


70 


The Queen of the House of David. 


formed a hollow square about their leader, and all 
kneeled upon the earth. 

Their wondering steeds seemed to catch the spirit 
of their riders, and, drawing near, drooped their heads. 
For a few moments there was awing silence, and then 
in deep measured tones the Hospitaler began chanting, 
“ Kyrie Eleison ” (Lord have mercy). The companions 
responded, “ Christi Eleison!' Then, amid those 
scenes of sacred history, the kneeling soldiers, together, 
and without command, with only the stars for altar- 
lights, solemnly chanted a portion of the sublime 
Litany of their church. Galilee never before, nor since, 
heard a more sincere orison : “ Pour forth, we beseech 
Thee, oh. Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to 
whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made 
known by the message of an angel, may by His passion 
and His cross be brought to the glory of His resur- 
rection, through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen."' 

As they arose, a Templar spoke: “ Companions, if it 
so please you, put a seal, the seal of the Red Cross 
Knights, upon our act.” So saying, the knight crossed 
his feet, then spread out his arms horizontally; simili- 
tude of the crucifixion. All reverently imitated the 
action, meanwhile, their swords being in hand with 
blades crossing, forming a fence of steel. 

‘‘Comrades,” spoke Sir Charleroy, with emotion, “I 
accept the trust, and vow by Him that gave the single- 
handed Elijah on yonder far-off wrinkled Carmel, sign 
by fire, that confounded Baal and its regal hosts, to 
lead you to liberty and home or to glorious graves.” 

“ In hocsigno vinces, living or dead,” was the chorused 
response, Just then the rising moon flooded their 


Nazareth. 


interlaced swords with light, and, as they glittered, the 
knights took it for an omen that there was a blessing 
in the union of their swords. 

“ Sir Charleroy, I proclaim thee king of Jerusalem ; 
what say you, comrades? ” exclaimed a hitherto silent 
Knight of St. John. Once more every knight’s sword 
touched the leader’s shield. 

“Nobly proclaimed!” remarked the Templar. 
“ When De Lusignan deserted us, ceasing to be kingly, 
he ceased to be king.” 

“ Have charity, men,” interrupted their chief ; “ it 
takes a world of courage to fall with a falling cause 
when a way of escape is open.” 

“Oh, we’ll have charity ; the same that Tancred had 
for that brave preacher and craven soldier, Hermit 
Peter; the latter ran from peril and Tancred raced him 
back. We can not reach Lusignan to whip him to duty, 
but we can vote him dethroned and dead. All cowards 
are dead to the brave.” 

“ But, companions, I must decline the presumptuous 
title and phantom throne. Jerusalem shall have, to 
us, but one king ; the Son of Mary. For the future, to 
you, let me be simply Sir Charleroy. Now let us be 
moving.” 

“ Whither? ” anxiously inquired several knights in a 
breath. 

“ Over the valley to the cactus hedges against the 
limestone cliffs before us, where runs along the great 
highway from Damascus to Egypt. We shall not 
ne^d the route to either point, probably ; but those 
hills are full of caves for the living and tombs for the 
dead.” All obeyed. 


The Queen of the House of David. 

“ Why so thoughtful?" said the Hospitaler to thd 
Knight of the Golden Cross, who marched along with 
his cloak partly shielding his face. 

“ I’m living in the past,’’ he sententiously answered. 

“ The past? Ah, to make up by a back journey for 
an expected briefing of thy future? ’’ 

“ No, raillery here. Hospitaler. I was just wishing 
that since we are so near Endor, Saul’s witch would 
call up some saintly Samuel to tell us where we shall 
be this time to-morrow." 

“ Oh, Golden Cross, know we can best bear the good 
or evil of the future by seeing it only as it comes ; 
for me, I prefer to think of another place, near us, but 
having a more helpful incident for the memory of such 
as we." 

“ Dost thou mean Nain ? " 

“ The same. There a dead only son was raised from 
the bier to comfort a widowed mother." 

“ Well said. Hospitaler," responded Sir Charleroy, 
and let us not forget that it was a mother’s tearful 
prayers that won the working of the miracle." 

“Alas, knight," sighed the Templar, “we have no 
mothers to so petition for us here, if we be quenched 
ere long." 

“Some of us have living mothers who never cease to 
pray for us, nor will until their breath ceases. In this 
land, where God appeared through motherhood, I 
-have a strong confidence that our mothers’ prayers, 
re*enforced by our appealing but unvoiced needs, will 
move the motherhood of God, if such I may call His 
tenderest lovings. I’ll trust to-night my mother’s 
prayers, reaching from England to Heaven and from 


Nazareth. 


n 


tlience to here, further than all the sympathy forgetful 
Europe will vouchsafe us. A nation cheered us to bat- 
tle, and yet it will never seek for the fragments defeat 
has left ; but the man never lived, no matter what his 
ill deserts, whom true mother love and eternal God 
love ever forgot.” After this long address. Sir Char- 
leroy again felt the glow within and the approvings 
that he felt on the quay when the bishop’s hands were 
on his head. 


Chapter vi 


THE FUGITIVES. 

Tis not in mortals to command success ; 

But we’ll do better, Sempronius ; we’ll deserve it/* 

— Cato, 

HE fugitives slept, some in the obliviousness 
of complete fatigue and others restlessly, 
their minds perturbed by dreams of their 
impending perils. Dawn summoned all to 
renewed activity, but its coming was not greeted joy- 
fully by the knights. 

“ Sir Charleroy,” mournfully spoke a Hospitaler to 
the former, as they met at the outskirts of the camp- 
ing place, “our comrade, the Knight of the Holy 
Sepulcher, made good his escape from this woeful 
country during the early morning, before dawn, as our 
comrades were sleeping ! ” 

“ Why, impossible ! ” questioningly responded the 
chief. 

“ Alas, ’twas rather impossible for him not to go ! ” 

“ I’m in no humor for such petty jesting ! See, his 
steed is there yet,” and Sir Charleroy turned on his 
heel impatiently as he spoke. 

“ Pardon, companion, he that departed was borne 
away by the white charger with black wings ! ” 





The Fugitives, 




Dead?’^ 

Mortals say * dead ’ of such, but it were better to 
say he is free.” 

“ Peace to his souli* fervently spoke Sir Charleroy. 

Ah, knight, thou canst not imagine the peacefulness 
of his going ! ” 

“ But why were we not summoned ? We might have 
consoled him at least ; perhaps we might have healed. 
What was his malady ? ” 

A poisoned arrow wounded him in the retreat from 
Acre. He did not realize his peril until the agonies of 
the end were wracking his body. Then he said, ^ Too 
late ; it’s useless to attempt resistance of the inevi- 
table.’ ” 

“Now this is pitiful — a humiliation of us all. 
Heavens, Hospitaler! there’s not a knight among us 
who would not have periled his life in effort in the 
dying man’s behalf.” 

“ But he cautioned me against disturbing any one on 
his account. ‘Poor men,’ he said, ‘ they’ll need all the 
rest they can get for the struggles of the day to come.' 
Only once did he seem to yearn for a remedy, and that 
time he spoke mostly as one dreaming. I remember 
his every word — ‘ I wish I could bathe these hot and 
bleeding wounds in the all-healing nards said to exude 
exhaustlessly from the image, of the Virgin Most 
Merciful at Damascus.’ I roused him, then, with an 
appeal for permission to summon thee, but he forbade 
me.” 

“ Thou shouldst have overridden all protests of his ! 
By my tokens! I’d have emulated faithful Elenora, • 
who sucked the poison from the dagger stab given her 


76 The Queen of the House of David. 

spouse, our knightly Prince Edward, by the would-bd 
assassin at Acre.’’ 

“ I could not resist him ; his face shone in the moom 
light with heavenly brightness; mine was covered with 
tears. Oh, chief, the dying man spoke like an angel.- 
Once he said : ‘ It is sweet to go out here, nigh where 
the resurrection angel, Gabriel, gave Mary the glad 
tidings that her humanity was to join with the Good 
Father to bring forth One capable of sounding each 
human sorrow here and hereafter. He overcomes th^ 
dread last enemy of all our race ! ’ I watched as he 
fixed his dying gaze upon the golden cross he wore j 
his last words still fill and inflame my soul : ^ Brother, 
good-night — ^say this to each for me. I feel great 
darkness creeping in to possess this broken, weary 
body. It comes to stay, but my soul moves forth out 
of its dungeon. I see gates most lofty, all glorious, 
and oh, so near! They open to an eternal day.’ Then 
he breathed his last, murmuring tenderly: ‘ I’m going; 
good-night ; good-morning ! ’ ” The Hospitaler ended 
his recital with a great sob, then burying his face in his 
cloak, was silent. 

Presently the knights formed a hollow square about 
an old tomb in the hillside. The Hospitaler sup- 
ported tenderly the head of the dead comrade in his 
lap. On the naked breast of the corpse lay the many- 
pointed golden cross of the Knights of the Sepulcher, 
while round the body was wrapped a Templar’s ban- 
ner, with its significant emblem, two riders on one 
horse ; symbol of friendship and necessity. 

■ “ Let the one who received the dying prayer of our 
brave companion speak,” said Sir Charleroy. The 


The Fugitives: 


77 


knights all knelt, and the Hospitaler still reverently 
supporting the head of the dead, spoke. Knight of 
Christ, sleep ; the clamors of war shall no more dis- 
turb thee. The dead at least are just and merciful. 
Israelite, Mohammedan and Christian may lie together 
in these vales, reconciled at last. They that would not 
share a loaf to save life to one another, in death share 
quietly all they have, their beds. The ashes of the 
long sleepers have no contentions ; here are no 
crowdings of each other; no misunderstandings; no 
alarms. Sleep, soldier, thy worthy warfare finished ; 
thy cause appealed to the Judge of All! Sleep and 
leave us to battle on 'mid perils and pain. Sleep 
thy body, while thy soul fathoms the mysteries to us 
inscrutable. Rest now, and leave us here a little 
longer to wonder why it is that human creatures must 
needs inhumanly oppose and slay each other for the 
■enthroning of Truth, the friend, the quest of all I 
Sleep, and leave us to wonder why death and conflict 
are the openers of the gates of life and peace." Some 
of those kneeling wept, but they were too much de- 
pressed to speak. Quietly they laid the body within 
its resting place ; quietly they sealed up the tomb’s 
entrance. Then they mounted their steeds at their 
chiefs command. 

“ There are but twelve of us left ; a lucky number. 
Perhaps the breaking of the fateful spell believed to 
follow the number thirteen, was death’s beneficence I ’’ 
It was the Templar who so spoke. 

“ It is said. Templar,’’ responded Charleroy, “that 
our Mary, in her girlhood, was escorted ever by an in- 
visible heavenly guard, a thousand strong. In the guard 


^8 The Queen of the tiouse of David, 

there were twelve palm-bearing angels of rare splendor, 
commissioned to reveal charity.” 

‘‘ A worthy companionship, chief!” 

“I’m inclined to pray heaven to send again to these 
parts the beautiful twelve, to assure us good fortune 
and victory.” 

“ Surely the prayers of us all join thine, Sir Charle- 
roy ; but methinks we have forgotten how to pray aright, 
or heaven has forgotten to answer us. We have been 
praying and fighting for months only to find at last 
that our prayers and our battlings are alike vain. I 
fear there are no palm-bearing angels at hand.” 

The horsemen slowly wended their way back to the 
hill-top, overlooking Nazareth, on which they first 
paused the night before. Again they halted to ad- 
mire the prospect, as well as to look for a route of 
safe retreat. Nazareth was astir. The little band on 
the hill could hear the morning trumpeters calling the 
Moslem to worship. 

“ Gentlemen,” said the leader of the band on the 
hill, “ it is wisdom to divide into two parties, and 
make for the sea by different routes. At Caesarea we 
may find some vessels with which to leave these to us 
fateful shores. If we meet the foe anywhere, the 
odds against us now are so great that death or en- 
slavement must be the result. Perhaps if there be 
two parties one may escape.” The knights paused 
about their leader a few moments in affectionate de- 
bate ; all opposing at first the plan that was to scatter 
them, but all, finally, convinced that it was the highest 
wisdom to go on their ways apart. Lots were cast by 
the eleven, De Griffin not participating. Four were 


The Fugitives, 79 

grouped in one party and seven in the other by the 
result. 

“ I’ll join the weaker party, remembering the five 
wounds of Jesus,” said SirCharleroy, reining his steed 
to the smaller company. A moment after he contin- 
ued : “Now, good souls, away with grief; part we 
must ; here and now. May God go tenderly with the 
seven, a covenant number. Now make your wills; 
then a brief farewell; then use the spur.” 

“Wills?” said a Templar, and they all smiled in a 
sickly way at the word. “We knights, boasting our 
poverty, our holding of all we have in community, 
know nothing of will-making.” 

“True, the pelf we each have is small enough; a 
few keep-sakes,our arms and such like ; but our love is 
something. Let’s will that, and if we’ve aught to say 
before we die, we’d better say it now. There is work 
ahead, and plenty of it. There will be no time for 
ante-mortem statement when we meet the cimeters of 
the Crescent.” So spoke Sir Charleroy. He con- 
tinued, “ My slayer will take good care of my jewels.” 
He commenced writing upon a bit of parchment, 
using for rest the pommel of his saddle. In a few 
moments he paused. 

“ Wilt thou read thine, that we may know how to 
make ours, chief?” inquired one near him. 

“A message to my mother; that’s all.” 

“ Enough; that’s sacred.” 

“Yes — but — no. Misery has knit us into one fam- 
ily. I feel to confide.” So saying, he read his 
writing, omitting only the portion that recited thdr 
recent vicLsitudes ; — 


8o The Queen of the House of David, 

“ And now, beloved mother, we turn from Naza- 
reth toward the sea with only a forlorn hope of 
reaching it. I long to meet thee, but the longing 
must, I fear, content itself in reaching out my heart’s 
best love across the distant ocean toward thyself. It 
is all I can give in return for the mysterious conscious 
ness that thine is a constant presence. My memory 
teems with records of my life-long ingratitude toward 
thyself, that gave me birth and all a loving heart 
could bestow, and now I’m tasting bitterest remorse 
for all those selfish days of mine. I wish I could 
recall their acts. Take these words as my request for 
pardon. I shall bind this little parchment scrap in my 
belt in a vague hope that some way, some time, it may 
reach thee. If it do, remember it is sent to bear to 
thee, beloved mother, the assurance that thy once way- 
ward boy remembers now, as he has for months, as the 
brightest, best, most exalting and blessed things of all 
his life, thy loving words, thy patient trust in him and 
all thy pious exhortations. I thank God now for all 
my trials and perils. They have brought me to full 
prizing of thy goodness and near to the religion thou 
dost profess.” 

The reader paused, and the companion knights at 
once began begging him to inscribe messages for them 
each, he being the only one in all the company 
having the priestly gift of the pen. Most of them 
said, “To my mother” or “To my sister, write ; ” 
but one blushed as he said, “ I’ve no mother nor 
sister.” His comrades rallied him at once: “Name 
her, the other only woman ! ” 

“A heart as brave as thine, knight,” said the Hos- 
pitaler to the blushing youth, “ has a queen on itg 
throne, somewhere.” 

The youth blushed more and drew away a little^ 


The Fugitives. 


8i 


Only a lover,” said the Templar. “ Lovers, absent, 
assuage their pinings by new mating ! They forget; 
mothers never do. Write for us. Sir Charleroy.” 

The blush of the youth deepened to anger, evincing 
his heart’s high protest against any hint of doubt 
being aimed at his queen ; but he was self-restraining, 
silent. “ I’ll not reveal her by defense even,” was his 
whispered thought. 

The writing was finished. Farewell ! Forward.” 

The chief suited the action to the commands, and 
soon his steed was dashing swiftly away with its 
rider, followed by the others of his party. The seven 
departed toward Nain ; perhaps it was an ominous 
choice, for their route led them toward the cave of 
incantation, where Endor’s witch called up for Saul the 
shade of Samuel. Most likely the words of the dead 
prophet to the haunted warrior, “To-morrow thou 
shalt be with me,” would have told the fate of the 
seven that morning fittingly, for they were never 
heard from by any of their earthly friends. 


f 


CHAPTER VII. 


ICHABOD. 

Oh, that many may know 
The end of this day’s business, ere it come ; 

But it sufficeth that the day will end. 

And then the end is known.” 

— Julius CcBsar. 

TEDIOUS ride brought the five knights 
nigh Shunem, the City of Elijah. 

We’ll find no prophet’s chamber here 
for such as we,” remarked Sir Charleroy. 
“Perhaps,” said a comrade, “we may by force or 
cajoling find a breakfast ; a cake or cruse of oil.” 

“Anyhow,” replied the chief, “we must try for a 
little food. We can neither fight nor flee with gaunt 
hunger on our flanks. Who knows, after all, but that 
we may happen on a humane being in these parts.” 

“ Well, good captain, if we should find a Shulamite, 
black, but comely, she might be as loving to thee as 

that one of old was to Solomon, although ” 

The sentence was broken off by the interrupting 
command of Sir Charleroy, “ Men, quick to cover ; to 
the lemon-tree grove on the right ! ” 

A glance back revealed a host of armed men behind 
the knights. 

“ All saints defend ! ” cried the Templar, as the little 
band wheeled toward the refuge. 



Ichahod. 83 

The tale of the battle to the death that ensued, is 
quickly told. 

Sir Charleroy, though he had fought with reckless 
bravery, as one hotly pursuing death, alone survived. 
A bludgeon blow felled him ; when he recovered 
consciousness, he beheld standing by his side a 
gorgeously bedecked Moslem. The clangor of the 
conflict was over; the blood in which he weltered, and 
the vicious eyes that watched him, were all that re- 
minded the knight of what had recently transpired. 
Presently the latter addressed the one that stood 
guard ; 

“Why is the infidel so tardy in finishing his work?" 

“ Is the Crusader in a hurry to reach night ? ’ sen- 
tentiously replied the man of gorgeous trappings. 

“ He would like to stay long enough to execute a 
murderer — the chief of thy horde." 

“ My horde ? Thou knowest me ? " 

“ Oh, yes, ‘ Azrael, Angel of Death,' thy minions call 
thee ; but I defy thee as I loathe thee." 

The chiefs brow darkened ; his sword rose in air, 
and he exclaimed : “ Hercules was healed of a ser- 

pent bite, ages ago, at Acre ; Islamism in the same 
place recently ; I must finish the hydra by cutting off 
thy hissing head, Christian." 

Sir Charleroy steadily met his captor's gaze, eye to 
eye, and was silent. 

The chief paused ; then lowering his sword, toyed 
its point against the cross on the prostrate man’s 
breast. 

“ Bitter tongue, thou dost worship a death sign | 
dosjt thou so love death?" 


$4 The Queen of the House of David. 

“Death befriends those who wear that sign in truth ; 
this is my comfort standing now at the rim of earth’s 
last night.” 

“Thy bright red blood and unwrinkled brow be- 
speak youth, the power to enjoy life. Youth and such 
power is ever a prayer for more time ; thou best to thy- 
self and me by professing to seek thy end.” 

“ How wonderful ! The ‘Angel of Death ’ is a soul- 
reader as well as a murderer!” bitterly rejoined Sir 
Charleroy. 

“Well, then, refute me I Here’s thy greasy, blood- 
stained sword ; now go, by thine own hands, if thou 
darest, to judgment.” 

“Trusting God, I may defy thee; yet not hurry 
Him!” 

“I like the Christian’s metal. I nriightlethim live.” 

“ Life would be a mean gift now ; a painful depart- 
ure from the threshold of Paradise, to renew weary 
pilgrimages.” 

“ I may be merciful.” 

“ I do not believe it.” 

“ Thou shalt.” 

“ When I believe in the tenderness of jackals and 
tigers, in the sincerity of transparent hypocrisy, I’ll 
praise the mercy of Azrael.” 

“ Our holy Koran reveals a bridge finer than a hair, 
sharper than a sword, beset with thorns, laid over hell. 
From that bridge, with an awful plunge, the wicked go 
eternally down ; over it safely, swiftly, the holy pass 
to happiness. Art ready to try that bridge ? ” 

“Ready for the land of forgetfulness ; no swords nor 
crescents are there.” 


Ichabod, 


85 


No, thou wouldst only reach Orf, the partition of 
hell, where the half-saints tarry ; thy bravery merits that 
much; but I’ll teach thee to reach better realms.” 

“Turk, Mameluke, ’tis fiendish to prejudge a dying 
soul ; leave judgment to God, and share now all that is 
within thy power, my body, with thy fit partners, the 
vultures ! ” 

“ A living slave is worth more to me than a dead 
knight ; I’ve an humor to let thee live.” 

“ Oh, most merciful hypocrite ! I did not think thou 
couldst tell the truth so readily ; but let me, I beseech 
thee, be the dead knight.” 

“ What if I save thy life, teach thee the puissant 
faith of Islam, give thee leadership, and with it oppor- 
tunity to win entrance to that highest Paradise, whose 
gateway is overshadowed by swords of the brave? 
There thou mayest dwell forever with Allah and the 
adolescent houris.” 

“ Enough ; unless thou dost aim to torture me ! I’m 
a Knight of Saint Mary, and thou full well knowest 
the measure of my vows ; how throughout this land my 
Order has warred against thy hateful polygamy, thy 
gilded lusts here, thy Harem heaven hereafter! Ye 
thrive by luring to your standards men aflame now 
with the fire that burns such souls at last in black per- 
dition. I tell thee to thy teeth, thou and thine are 
living devils. But ye war against the wisdom of the 
world and the law of God ; though triumphing now, ye 
will rot amid your riots and victories.” 

The chief’s face grew black as night for an instant, 
but recovering himself, he continued, sarcastically at 
first, then with the zeal of a proselyter: 


86 The Queen of the House of David. 

** Speak low, thou, last dying vestige of a wan faith ! 
Thou mightst make my solemn followers yell with ridi- 
culing laughter! I tell thee of life and of a faith as 
natural as nature herself. Listen ; there is for the brave 
and faithful a Paradise whose rivers are white as milk 
as odoriferous as musk. There are sights for the eye^ 
fetes most delicious and music never ceasing to ravish ; 
these lure the brilliantly-robed faithful to the black- 
eyed daughters of Pleasure. One look at them 
would reward such as us for a world-life of pain ; and 
the children of the prophet’s faith are given the 
eternities to companion these splendid creatures whose 
forms created of musk know no infirmity, but survive, 
always, as adolescent fountains. The heaven of 
Islamism is eternal youth, eternally luxurious.” 

“ It befits the Angel of Death to gild a deformed 
hell with bedazzling words. Thou and thine glorify lust, 
and thy heaven, like thy harem, is but a brothel after 
all. Now let me blast thy gorgeous charnel-house 
with the lightning of God’s Word: ‘Blessed are the 
pure in heart for they shall see God 1 ’ ” 

Sir Charleroy had raised himself up as he was speak- 
ing; now he fell back, exhausted. He again felt the 
glow in his heart that he felt on the quay when the 
English bishop blessed him ; but it seemed more real 
now than then, and the approvings of conscience some 
way came with rebukes that caused tears to flow. He 
felt something akin to real penitence fora life that had 
not been always up to the ideal that this debate had 
caused him to exalt. As he fell back he closed his 
eyes and turned his face from his captor ; the act was a 
prayer to be helped to shut out of his mind the pic- 


Ichahod. 


87 


ture of gilded lust depicted by the false teacher that 
stood by. For a few moments the wounded man was 
left to his own thoughts, and then his heart went out 
toward home crying like a sick or lost child in the 
night, for Mother! " Once more he returned to that 
duality of existence which comes when one enters into 
personal introspections. There seemed to be two Sir 
Charleroys, one writing the history of the other, and 
the writer was recording such estimates as these : “As 
he lay there, nigh death, he drew near to God. He 
had once been a rover, seeking the wildest pleasures of 
the European capitals ; but meeting passion, presented 
as the ultimate of life, for all eternity, his soul recoiled 
from it and he became the herald of purity. Once he 
had friends, wealth and physical prowess ; but he 
squandered them as a prodigal ; when he lay bleeding, 
powerless in body, amid strangers, a slave, he rose to 
the majesty of a moral giant.” The Sir Charleroy that 
was thus reviewed was comforted, and he stood off 
from the picture in imagination to admire it, as one 
standing before a mirror. Just then he thought of his 
mother and Mary, his ideal, standing on either side of 
him, before the same presentment. It might have been 
a dream ; but he believed they smiled through tears, 
pressed their beating hearts to his and upheld him by 
their arms with tenderness and strength. His captor 
left him for a few moments only, undisturbed. At a 
sign from Azrael, he was soon carried away by a guard ; 
the parley was ended and he that had so bravely spoken 
doomed to confront that that is to the vigorous mind 
the worst of happenings, uncertainty. For months the 
captive mechanically submitted to the fortunes of the 


88 The Queen of the House of David, 

Sheik’s caravan ; in health improving ; in spirit de- 
pressed, numbed. The knight had constantly before 
him three grim certainties, escape impossible ; rebel- 
lion useless ; each day hope darkened by further depar- 
ture from the sea. The captive’s treatment from the 
Sheik was not unkind. The latter met him by times 
with a sort of courtly condescension, varied only by an 
occasional penetrating, questioning glance. They had 
little conversation, yet the Sheik’s looks plainly said: 
“When thou art subdued, sue for favors; they’ll be 
granted.” De Griffin nursed his pride and firmness and 
prevented all familiarity on Azrael’s part. The latter 
was puzzled sometimes, sometimes angered ; but he 
was too polite to show his feelings. For months the 
only conversation between the two alert, strong men 
might be summed up in these words on the Sheik’s 
part : “ Slave, freedom and heaven are sweet.” “ Knight, 
Allah knows only the followers of the Prophet as 
friends.” On the knight’s part a look of scorn or an 
expression of disgust was the sole reply. 

In the Sheik’s retinue was another captive, a Jew. 
He was constantly near the knight ; for being more 
fully trusted than the latter, the Sheik had made the 
Israelite in part the custodian of the Christian. The 
knight discerned the relationship very quickly; though 
both Jew and chief endeavored to conceal it. Sir 
Charleroy, at the first, treated his companion captive 
with loathing and resentment, as a spy. After a time, 
the “ sphinx, eyes open, mouth shut,” as Azrael 
described Sir Charleroy, deemed it wise and politic to 
make the Jew his ally. ^The resolution once formed, 
he found many circumstances to aid in bridging the 


Ichabod. 


89 


gulf that separated the captive and his guard ; the cul- 
tured Teutonic leader and the wandering Israelite. 
They both hated the same man, their captor; both 
loathed the religion he was covertly aiming to lure 
them to ; both were anxious for freedom. They gave 
voice to these feelings when together, alone, and ere 
long sympathy made them friends. The next step was 
natural and easy ; the stronger mind took the leader- 
ship of the two, and Sir Charleroy became teacher ; his 
keeper became his pupil and prot^g^. 

The twain one day, after this change of relation, 
walked together conversing, on a hill overlooking Jeri- 
cho, by which place the Sheik’s caravan was encamped. 

Ichabod, thou wearest a fitting name.” 

I suppose so, since my mother gave it. But why 
say so now ? ” 

Ichabod, ^ glory departed,’ thou art like thy people 
— despoiled.” 

Oh, Lord ! how long? ” piously exclaimed the Jew. 

^‘Till Shiloh comes! ” 

Verily it is so written,” was the Jew’s reply. 

But He has come, Israelite 1 ” 

Where?” the startled Jew questioned, drawing 
back as if he expected his, to him mysterious, com- 
panion to throw back his tunic and declare : lain he ! ” 

‘‘ In the world and in my heart.” 

“Ah, Sir Knight, Israel’s desolation refutes all that.” 

“Jew, thine eyes are veiled. I’ll teach thee to see 
Him yet.” 

The Jew was puzzled. 

The twain fell into prolonged converse, and then 
in that lone place the Crusader waxed eloquent, preach- 


90 The Queen of the House of David. 

ing Christ and Him crucified to one of Abraham's 
seed. 

When the two captives descended to their tents, 
each was conscious of a new, peculiar joy. One had the 
joy of having proclaimed exalted truth, faithfully, to the 
almost persuading of his hearer; the other was mov- 
ing about in the growing delight and wonder of a new 
dawning faith. 

At frequent intervals Ichabod besought the knight 
to take him “ to the mountain."' 

Each visit thither was a delight to the new inquirer. 

On such a journey one day spoke Ichabod : “ Chris- 
tian, I am consumed with anxiety to hear thy words 
and another anxiety lest they do me harm. I am 
thinking, thinking, by day, and, what little time my 
thoughts permit sleep. I’m filled with wondrous dreams ! 
I fear to lose my old faith, and yet it becomes like 
Dead Sea apples under the light of this new way. So 
new, so infatuating. None I’ve met, and I’ve met 
many, ever so moved me. Why, knight. I’ve traversed 
half the world ; sometimes as wealth’s favorite, some, 
times of necessity in misfortune ; I’ve seen the faiths 
of Egypt and India in their homes, and walked amid 
the temples of great Rome, but with abiding contempt 
for all not Israelitish. Not so this creed of the knight 
affects me.” 

“And for good reason; I offer thee the true, new, 
refined and final Judaism ! ” 

“ It seems so, and yet I tremble. I dare not doubt ; 
that’s sin ; but here’s the puzzle that harasses me : 
What if, in doubting these things I’m now told, I be 
doubting the very truth, the Jewish faith ! ” 


Ichabod. 


9 


** Ichabod, thy heart has been a buried seed await- 
ing the spring. It has come.*' 

“ Oh, knight, Fm trusting my dear soul to thee. 
As a dog his master, a maid her lover, so blindly I 
follow thee. I can not go back : I can not pause nor 
can I go onward alone. Fm in the misery of a joy too 
great to be borne, almost, and yet too much my master 
to be given up. Oh, knight, thou art so wise, so 
strong ! Steady me ; hold me up ! I can only pray 
and adjure thee to be sincere with me ; only sincere ; 
that’s all; as sincere as if thou wert ministering to the 
ills of a sick man battling death.” 

The child of Abraham, with a sudden movement, 
flung his arms with all vehemence about Sir Charleroy. 
The East and the West embracing, truth leading, love 
triumphant. 

“ Poor Ichabod, if thou hads’t no soul, thy clingings 
and yearnings would bind me to thee faithfully. Thou 
hast tried to give me charge over that that is immortal. 
A Higher Being has it in loving trust ; were it not so, 
Fd turn in dread from thy confiding! ” 

“ Is mine so bad a soul, master? ” 

Indeed, no. Its preciousness to Him that created 
it, is what would make me dread its partial custody.” 
“ Thou’lt help me, master, now ? ” 

“For three objects I’ll willingly die ; my mother; 
our lady, and the soul of one who abandons himself, as 
thou, to my poor pilotage.” 

“ Then, thou strangely lovest me. Oh, this but more 
persuades me that thy faith is right ; it makes thee so 
good to a stranger, a slave, a hated Jew 1 ” 

But then we are so apart and so unlike each other ! 


92 The Queen of the House of David. 

“ No, Jew, I want to show that humanity is one. 
The very creed I’m trying to teach thee and would fain 
have all thy race, ay, all mankind fully understand, is 
full of love, joy, peace. These follow it as naturally as 
the flower the stem, the humming the flying wing 
made to fly and be musical.” 

“ Oh, my dear light, with thee I’m in joy and wilder- 
ment. Thy presence seems to bring me hosts of 
crowned truths, all seeking to enter my being. I feel 
like a tired runner ready to faint when thou’rt absent, 
but when thou talkest the tired runner is plunged into a 
cooling ocean, whose circling waves, as it were charged 
with the stimulus of tempered lightnings, glowing with 
a million rainbows, overwhelm, lift up and rest him. 
I’m floating thereon now !” 

“Thy strange fancies make me wonder, Ichabod.” 

“Wonder; why my strength dies from over wonder. 
I was ill for hours yesterday. Light to my sweat- 
blinded, feverish eyes, all calm and healing, comes 
when I yield to thy will ; but still all my joy is 
haunted by ghosts which rise in day-mare troops, 
pointing rebukingly to labyrinths into which I seem 
to be pushed. I sometimes wonder if I’m seeing real 
spirits or going mad.” 

“ Dost pray, Jew?” 

‘‘ I dare not live without praying ! ” 

“Then tell the All Pitiful what thou hast this day 
told to me. He loves the sincere, down to the deep- 
est hell of doubt, and from it all, at last, will lead 
tumulted souls safely. An honest doubt is a real 
prayer, well winged ; quickly it reaches heaven, at 
whose portal it dies to rise again all peace,” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


FROM JERICHO TO JORDAN. 

Through sins of sense, perversities of will, 

Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill, 
Thy pitying Eye is on Thy creature still.” 

Wilt Thou not make, eternal Source and Goal, 

In thy long years life’s broken circle whole. 

And change to praise the cry of a lost soul ? ” 

—Whittier. 



EW and Crusader came to love each other 
after the manner of David and Jonathan, 
and they were both made stronger and 
happier men on account of this loving. 

SirCharleroy, a year gone to day, thou and I climbed 
to glory.’* 

Thou hast a prolific imagination or I a poor mem- 
ory. I have no remembrance of either climbing or 
glory of a year ago.” 

I may well remember the greatest day of my life ; 
the day thou tookst me up yon hill over against Jericho ; 
I saw, as Elisha, in the presence of his great master 
Elijah, the mountains, that day, full of the chariots 
and angels of God.” 

*‘But, Jew, the chariot separated Elijah and Elisha ; 
we were, in thy * great day,’ made one.” 

T rue, but I got the prophet’s insight and power. Oh, 




94 Queen of the House of David. 

now I see Shiloh coming in the redemption of Jew and 
Gentile." 

Radiant proselyte, give God, not me the glory." 

ril call thee, knight, Jordan — my Jordan." 

The Jew rambles amid strange conceptions. Why 
am I like that mighty stream ? " 

“ Its bed and banks, God’s cup ; they nobly serve, 
catching the pure waters of mountain springs and 
heaven’s clouds, to bear them, mingled with sweet Gali- 
lee, to the black burning lips of Sodom’s plains below. 
I was a dead sea, alive alone to misery ; nothing to me 
but my historic past, and that sin-stained. I’m now 
refreshed and purified ; sometime there’ll be life grow- 
ing about me ! " 

'‘The highlands of Galilee gather from heaven, 
oceans of sweet, pure water, which Jordan, year after 
year, night and day, hurries down to the Asphalt 
sea; but still that sea remains lifeless and bitter. 
Even so, the clean, white truth comes to some, life- 
long, yet vainly. I think I’m little like Jordan, but 
much like that sea." 

" And yet, knight, all is not vain that seems so. I 
learned this once, long ago, in the vale of Siddim, by 
the sea of Lot. As I entered that place of desola- 
tion I thought of Gehenna ! The lime cliffs about, all 
barren and pitiless as the walls of a furnace, shut out 
the breezes, and intensified the sun’s scorching rays. 
A solemn stillness, unbroken by wind, wave or voice of 
life, was there ; suffocating, plutonic odors ladened the 
air, and a fog hung over that watery winding sheet of 
the cities of the plain. I watched that overhanging 
^loud until my heated brain shaped it into a vast com- 


Prom Jericho to Jordaiit 


95 


pany of shades ; the ghostly forms of the overwhelmed 
denizens of those accursed -habitations, now in mute 
terror and confusion, holding to one another desper- 
ately ; fearing to go to final judgment. Once I thought 
they were together trying to look down into the depths, 
perchance to seek for vestiges of their ancient, earthly 
habitations. These fancies grew and grew upon me, 
mad dreamer that I was, until I was nigh to desperate 
fright ; but I found some little angels on the shore 
who comforted.” 

“ Angels at Sodom ? ” 

“ Ev^n so. The first was light and liquid silver; it 
sang a bar of nature's tireless, varied melody by my foot- 
steps. Ah, the little, fresh spring that burst forth 
through the rim of the crystalline basin, was an angel to 
me. Then I found others here and there. At first I was 
glad, then I began to pity them, and to wish I could 
change their courses. They all wended their ways to 
the desolate sea, and their sweet currents were swal- 
lowed up in the yawning gulf of death. ‘Vainly,' I 
said at first. Then I saw other angels in the forms of 
bending willows, and gorgeous oleanders. Just then it 
all came to me ; the springs, though small and few, 
were not in vain. The oleanders and the willow, whose 
roots kissed their fresh life, were evidences that the 
springs had been for good. Aye, more, the flowers re- 
joiced me in those desolations more than could the 
rose gardens of the Temple in days of happiness. 
Yea, knight, thou hast been a rivulet to Ichabod in a 
day when he wandered as among arid mountains and 
dead seas.” 

“ Blest child of Abraham, thy faith is great, though 


§6 The Queen of the House of David, 

I be but a pitiable guide ; yet Fll adopt thy similes^ 
Be thou and I, to each other, Jordan, rivulet and 
flower by turn ; the fresh current gives life to plant and 
blossom, while plant and blossom both shade and beau- 
tify the streams. With both it shall be well, if we well 
learn to seek deep for the hidden springs of the life 
that can never die. Already thou hast blessed me very 
greatly, gathering truths I failed to find. Thou re- 
turn’st to me multiplied all I bestow." 

“Would I could gather for all; for my race, so 
blinded ! Oh, it is a tristful thought that the nearer I 
get to God, the further I get from them I love next 
after Him. Even my mother was wont to say to me, 
when, as a questioning boy, I inquired beyond the 
traditions of the Rabbis, that she’d disown me to all 
eternity as a heretic. My belief has made me an out- 
cast to her, and yet the thought of her hating me tears 
my heart." 

“ I’ll love thy orphaned heart." 

“ Me ? Love me ; so far beneath thee and with such 
pauper power of payment ? " 

“ Thy desolation makes thee rich ; having none-other 
to love, thou canst love me the more. Thou know’st 
this open secret of loving ; its selfishness demands all ; 
getting that it gives all. Fear not Ichabod, but that 
thou’lt find the hunger of thy heart well fed. It is as 
natural for us to love those we have helped as to hate 
those we have harmed. Thou know’st how men won- 
der that the Infinite can love the finite, but they for- 
get, or never realized, that one may love because he 
has loved. So is it with God. He loves, and that He 
loves becomes therefore rich and worthful to Him," 


Prom Jericho to Jordan, 


07 


The morning after the betrothal, shall we call it, of 
these two men to each other,- long before dawn the 
knight was wakened by a cautious step on the stone 
floor of his sleeping place. Sir Charleroy was at once 
all alert and leaped frorri the couch, sword in hand, 
expecting to confront some gipsy thief, for there had 
been a band of these wanderers hovering near the day 
before. 

“ Who’s there ? ” sternly he demanded, advancing, 
on guard meanwhile. 

^‘Ichabod, Ichabod! ” with trembling voice and in a 
half whisper. It was the Jew. 

“ I did not mean to fright thee,” he hurriedly 
€:xplained, when he had recovered from his fear of 
being thrust through, “but I’ve news; bad news that 
would not wait ! ” 

“ What is the bad? Is it near?” 

“ Oh, knight, speak low — the news is bad enough 
and the ill, though not on us, close after us ! ” 

“ Thou art excited, my friend ; sit down and then 
unfold the matter. Meanwhile I’ll light a faggot. 

“ In truth, I can’t sit, and I’ve reason to be nervous.” 
Then the man spread out his arms and his fingers as if 
he would stand all ready to fly ; his eyes wide open, 
staring as he talked. 

“ Our Sheik leaves Jericho to-morrow ; summoned by 
the sheriff of Mecca. The sheriff is supreme to 
Moslem. The command is for war toward the east. 
Blood, blood ; when will the world be done shedding 
blood ! ” 

“ Well, my loving alarmist,” replied Sir Charleroy, 
coolly, “ that’s not very bad news. If the Shiek leaves 


The Queen of the Mouse of David* 

us, we'll be free ; if he takes us, there will be a change: 
and for that I could almost cry ‘ Blessed be Allah ! ' I 
am sickened, crushed, dry-rotted by this hum-drum 
life ; this slavery ; dancing abject attendance on a glut- 
tonous master, whose sole object seems to be eating or 
dallying about the marquees of his harem" 

“ Oh, Sir Charleroy, the change has dreadful things 
for us ! " 

“Why?" 

“ I heard that the runner bringing the mandate from 
Mecca brings also command that all prisoners, such as 
we, must be made to embrace Islamism, enlist to die, 
if need be, in this so-called holy war, or be sent to the 
slave mart." 

“This is a carnival for the furies! Why, Ichabod, 
the latter is burial alive ; the former death with a dis- 
honored conscience! " 

“ Sir Charleroy, I prefer the slavery." 

“ Well, I prefer neither. Is the mandate final?" 

“Yes; I’ve an order to commence packing at sun- 
rise ; by noon we will be enlisted or in chains." ' 

“Who gave thee these state secrets, so in detail? 
Perhaps 'tis only camp-fire gossip recounted for lack of 
novel ghost stories." 

“Ah, 'tis too true. I’d swear my life on it !" 

“ Rash, credulous ; but which now, comrade, I can 
not tell." 

“ Master, I had this from one that loves me as I love 
thee ; the young Nourahmal, light of the harem, 
favorite of the Shiek." 

“Well, now it seems to me that this light of the 
harem ij thy favorite rather than the Shiek’^." 


From Jericho to Jordan. 


99 


** She adores me.” 

** Doubtless ! Where a woman unfolds her mind 
there she brings all else an offering easily possessed. 
She seals her change of allegiance by scattering the 
secrets of the dethroned to the enthroned lover. 

‘ Nourahmal ’ ? Is she as charming in form as in name ? ” 

“ Hold, now ! If thou lov’st me thou will’st not 
continue thus to wound. I love that girl, but not the 
way thou meanest ! ” 

“ So ? Is there an elopement pending ! ” 

Unworthy gibe ! Say no more like it, but answer 
this : Is it not possible for a man and woman to be knit- 
ted together in soul, as I and thou have been, without 
the shadow of a remembrance that they are animals of 
different sexes?” 

“ Possible ? Really I do not know. It may be pos- 
sible, but so very rare that I have failed to hear of any 
such relationship.” 

‘‘Then thou shalt hear of it now in Nourahmal and 
me.” 

“ ril take both to Paris ! Another wonder of the 
world ! But explain further.” 

“ My Nourahmal is a captive ; hates the man to 
whom she must submit as we hate him, and loves me 
with the new love that you have revealed to me, 
because IVe shown her that I love her that way ; so 
different from any thing she ever knew before.” 

“Well, there are many women yoked to men for 
whom they feel no great affection, yet they glorify 
womanhood by their unfaltering loyalty. Loyalty is 
woman’s glory; the hope of society. If the women 
be traitors, then, alas ! ” 


too The Queen of the House of David, 

“ Nourahmal is riot a wife! The man that patcels 
out his heart to a dozen favorites buys but scraps in 
return. A woman in misery’s chains, without the 
bands of the confiding, utter love of her lord,- will talk ; 
she must talk, or go triad; 1 tell, thee, knight, such gos- 
sip is the pariacea of suicidal bent. There 's many a 
woman kills herself for lack of a confidant ! ” 

Thou hast learried much philosophy going around 
the world; Jew, but perhaps not this bitter truth ; the 
woman who is traitor to One man will be to another; 
Thou mayst be the next. What if she set us fleeirig for 
the sake of laughing at our forced return ? ” 

Impossible, knight ; she reveres me truly ; even 
as she does God ; just as I did Sir Charleroy when he 
brought me light and rest. I was to her what thou 
art to me. One day I told her women had souls, as 
dear to heaven as the souls of men ! She laughed at 
me like a monkey, at first, and reminded me that were I 
a true desciple of Islam I’d know that only young and 
beautiful women go to heaven, and they even there 
have a lowly place. Thou knowest these infidels be- 
lieve that the large majority of hellians are women.” 

“Not strange Jew; they treat women as pretty or 
useful animals, and so degrade, not only themselves, but 
these very women. A woman so demeaned does not 
become heavenly, to say the least. But I think, if I 
were a Turk, I’d keep only argus-eyed eunuchs to 
guard my harem; in faith. I’d even have the tongues 
out of those guards.” 

“ There, now, thou dost jest again.” 

“ Well, go on, in seriousness. Tell us the pipings of 
this seraglio beauty.” 


Prom Jericho to Jordan, 


i6i 


Fve won her over completely/' 

“ This is not strange. Poets are always valiant, vic- 
torious orators with women. The female heart is 
emotionally moved up to belief with little logic, if the 
speaker be fair, or musical, or brave ! " 

“ I was none of these ; I told her of the ‘ Friend of 
Publicans and Sinners ; ’ that fed her soul. I do not 
believe there is a woman on earth that can resist that 
story.” 

‘‘Oh, well, Fm not going to forget that the first 
woman outran her mate in evil, nor that she exchanged 
the All Beautiful for the snaky demon.” 

“ It would be nobler for a knight, truer for all, to 
judge, if judge they will, by wider circles. Do not re-, 
member the sin of one, or a few, to the disparagement 
of all ! ” 

“ Eve, the best made of all, fell ; then her weaker 
sisters are more likely to follow in her way,” said the 
knight. 

“She found a sin and fell: thousands of her daugh- 
ters have fallen by sins that men invented and thrust 
on them. Thou knowest that most women who go 
wrong, go in ways they would not without the temp- 
tings of the stronger will. The sin that ruins most is 
that to woman’s nature abhorrent, until honeyed over 
by the tongue of man.” 

“ Dexterous lance, art thou, Jew ; but, anyway, some 
women are born bad.” 

“No; I’m not able for one so wise as the knight, 
unless I’ve the strength of truth. I’ve heard that our 
wise men say that if we could trace the ancestry of any 
one evil, from birth, we would find somewhere, up the 


io^ The Queen of the House of David, 

line, a father, preeminent in wickedness. Say, wotneil 
are weak to resist evil ; then, say men are strong to 
propagate it. Now, which way turns the scale ? ’ 

“ Oh, I say always, dogmatically, if need be, in man’s 
favor.” 

“ Let me see : Eve’s humanity that sinned was out of 
the finest part of Adam’s body, and the serpent which 
betrayed her was a male.” 

“ I’ll parry the thrust by asking why the Holy Writ- 
ings reveal no female angels ? I think there are none.” 

I’ve a wiser reason, knight. It is this : Man has so 
foully dealt with the angels in the fiesh that God’s 
mercy reserves their finer spiritual counterparts for the 
sole companionships of heaven, which justly appre- 
ciates these holy, pure and tender creations. Heaven 
would not be perfectly beautiful without them and, 
methinks, can not spare one for a moment ! ” 

‘‘Not even to minister to a needy world?” 

“Woman’s life is here, generally, all service, all min- 
istry ; her return to earth after death would be. a work 
of supererogation. God sends back the male spirits 
to help restore the world their sex did most to ruin.” 

Then both the debaters laughed out as heartily as 
they dared, but there was in the tones of the knight’s 
laughter a part-confession of defeat. After a time 
Sir Charleroy spoke again : “ Thou art calm now, after 
this diversion, Ichabod ; proceed with thy story of 
danger.” 

“ Well, Nourahmal ” 

“ Oh, yes, begin again with Nourahmal. Samson was 
a pretty good man for a giant, but he had a betraying 
Delilah!” 


From J ericko to Jordan. 


103 


True enough ; but he had also a noble mother. Re- 
member the better, rather than the worse.” 

“ I remember her peers, Mary and my mother.” 

So, then, when sweepingly condemning all the sex, 
please except the mothers, at least of those who may 
be thy hearers.” 

Good Jew, ril not wound thee ! ” 

‘*No pity forme; pity thyself. Such thoughts as 
thou hast spoken wound thine own soul. We Jews 
have an order called ‘ Tumbler Pharisees ; ’ they affect 
humility, shuffle as they walk and stumble on pur- 
pose that they may not seem to walk with confidence. 
Akin to them we have the ‘ Bleeding Pharisees ; ’ they 
walk with shut eyes, lest they should see a woman, and, 
stumbling against many a post, are soon covered with 
their own blood, receiving real harm in flying from 
imaginary dangers.” 

“ ‘ Maya, Maya,’ Ichabod,” laughing aloud, exclaimed 
Sir Charleroy. 

The latter, catching the knight’s arm, hoarsely 
whispered: “Hush! Thou mayst be heard. What 
dost thou mean by ^ Maya ’ ? ” 

“ Perhaps, Nourahmal ! Maya was the reputed wife 
of the supposed god Brahm of the Hindus. It is 
reported that she was in form like unto fog and her 
name means ‘illusion.’ A subtle truth, Jew; even a 
god, in love, is near a fog bank ! ” 

“Thou dost not know Nourahmal and dost discredit 
her ; that’s slander ; thou dost know me and ridiculest 
me; that’s — but — I’ll not say it.” 

“ I’d not pain my Ichabod.” 

“ Nor discredit Nourahmal?’' 


104 Queen of the House of David, 

“ No ; but did this angel, or Syren of thine, having 
shown the peril, present a map to a city of refuge?" 

“ Ah, poor, helpless girl ! she has none for herself, 
much less for us. She just told me all and wept and 
kissed me a farewell, praying me to flee. I could think 
of no question in the delight of hearing her say, she 
hoped I’d meet her in Heaven, in peace away from 
Moslem and wars. Only think of her faith ! All new ; 
just a little while ago she did not know there was a 
heaven for women. I felt I could die then in peace. 
I’ve taught one woman that she is more than a pretty 
animal ! " 

“ Then, Jew, to thee, life is worth living ? " 

“ Oh truly ! Oh, if this light could only spread over 
Egypt and all my own Syria ! ’’ 

“ Thy desire is akin to that of Mary’s son and noble. 
Certain it is that we can not spread that light by fight- 
ing to sustain the fateful Crescent." 

By the glory of God, I never will." 

“ Nor I, son of Abraham ; so let’s decline." 

“ And go to the slave mart ? " 

“ Oh, no, not while I’ve a sword, Ichabod." 

Then to flee is the word ? ’’ 

“ The eastern campaigning with the sheik, would 
be a little longer route to Paradise?" 

Perhaps not ; I am assured that we are needed of 
God by the use He has recently made of us. He will 
keep us in our flight from bloody persecuting war, and 
possible apostacy." 

“ I hate the last word ! A knight enchanted of Mary 
can never become a renegade ; not I, at least. I was 
born October ninth. Tradition says that the holy St. 


From Jericho to Jordan, 


105 


John Damascene, having had his hand cut off by the 
Saracens that day, was by Our Lady miraculously 
made whole, and lived long after to wield a powerful, 
facile pen in her behalf. I’ll trust my head and saber 
hand, used for her, to her protection.” 

“ And I’ll trust Him that led the wandering hosts 
of Moses; for Hn all their affliction, He was afflicted 
with them, and the angel of His presence saved 
them ; and He bore them and carried them all the 
days of old.* Oh, master. I’ve comfort I can not tell, 
when I feel orphaned, by thinking of my Maker, 
not only as a Father, but as a Mother! God is 
our Mother when we, bereft of mother-love, most 
feel our need of it. So thou toldst me in the moun- 
tains.” 

True ; but shall we try our escape now ? ” 

Nay, we had better wait till a little before dawn ; 
the camp patrol is then withdrawn ; then we’ll em^ 
brace freedom.” 

“ The Jew seems very confident.” 

**Oh, I spent the hour after I met Nourahmal (God 
keep her), amid the palms for which Jericho is fitly 
named,, and got a token.” 

A token ? ” 

My eyes were touched in the darkness.” 

“ Sweet Nourahmal followed thee ? ” 

No^ but He that opened the eyes of blind Bartimeus 
near here.” 

What didst thou see ?” 

** Elisha healing the streams about this palm city, 
type of God healing the floods of bitterest fates; after 
that I saw Jericho’s walls falling at the blasts of 


io6 The Queen of the House of David, 

Joshua's trumpets, and remembered that his God then 
is ours now.” 

“ Didst thou see two poor men fleeing in the dark 
from peril to peril, pursued by a hundred horsemen, 
who saber-lashed them ; a little further two corpses, one 
of a Christian the other of a Jew, on which fed fighting 
jackals?” 

I saw no such horror ! 1 saw two led forth from 
their captors, as Peter from his dungeon ; the angels 
that blinded the eyes of the monstrous men, who of 
old sought to defile Lot’s house, blinded the eyes of 
the pursuers of the two ; and the angel of Peter gave 
them guidance and light. But come, the night-guard 
has retired; between now and the call to morning 
prayers is our opportunity.” 

Out of the old stone stable silently knight and Jew 
glided, threading their way amid splendors they be- 
lieved to be, but could not see. The ministering 
, spirits were over and around them, their path was 
through the Kelt, the sublimest waddy of Palestine ; 
but night shrouded the latter ; their weak faith dimly 
discerned the other. 

Can’t thou see any way-marks, Jew?” 

“ I discern but few. Yet, what matter? It is enough 
that He who leads us sees ? ” 

The night is getting blacker and blacker ; the omen 
makes my heart shiver as it beats.” 

As the knight spoke there came a terrific crash of 
thunder and a succession of blinding lightning flashes. 
Sir Charleroy clasped the Jew’s arm and in startled 
voice questioned : 

'‘Dost thou not fear these?"' 


From Jericho to Jordan, 


107 


Why should I ? The angel guides swing the torches 
of the unchangable Father to give us glimpses of our 
way. All is well ; I saw by the lightning flash that we 
are passing safely the camp lines of our captors.” 

A few miles were over-past. The storm had abated 
a little, and the first streaks of dawn, like spears, were 
rising in the east. 

Would God, good Jew,” said the now wearied Sir 
Charleroy, that the Prophet of the Moslem, who, near 
by here, is said once by a stamp of his foot to have 
brought forth from the rock a camel, were present to 
dance for us now.” 

He is not here, so we must help ourselves,, knight.” 

‘^Ah, my dear man, canst thou dance rocks into 
camels ? ” 

“ No, but there are houses nigh, and each thou 
knowst has it’s stable-yard in front.” 

But there is the thorny nubk tree, surrounding the 
herds.” 

“ I’ve faith to try my faith when all I have is 
faith.” 

“What for; to steal a camel?” 

“ Oh, no ; Td not steal a camel but I’d borrow a 
couple of them. Two ; for I’m not one of the knights 
who exhibit poverty, by riding double, thou dost 
know.” 

“ Borrow ^ Well so be it ; the black infidels owe us 
for two years’ service. They borrowed us ! ” 

“It’s pious to take the beasts; for we pay so honest 
debts of these heathens and shorten the list of their 
souls’ sins by removing from them, in our escape, the 
opportunity for our murder.” 


lo8 The Queen of the House of David. 

“If this be sophistry, Ichabod, it is so sweet that it 
is taken as delightful truth.” 

“Thou art persuaded?” 

“ No man can out run me, be he rabbi or priest, in 
condemning vices, if they be such as I do not care to 
practice, and I am a profound believer in every creed 
that’s sweet ‘to my desires. Here action treads the 
heels of persuasion.” 

****** 

On beasts, borrowed without formality, the fugitives 
hurried toward Jordan, only there to find a barrier to 
their progress in the angry torrent swelled by the 
recent storms. It was clearly futile to attempt a pas- 
sage, and to tarry, waiting the ebb of the waters, was 
to bring certain detection. They turned the heads of 
their borrowed camels toward their master’s homes and 
waited the sunrise, meanwhile moving about to find 
^ome means of safety. 

“Well, my comrade, I think it will not be long until 
those Turks will give our souls an Elijah-like ascen- 
sion except that there will be no chariot. The morning 
shimmering on his mountain makes me think of this, 
Ichabod.” 

“ The tracks of our returning camels in the wet 
earth will guide our pursuers.” 

“ Suppose we climb a tree asZacchaeus, since we can 
not have a chariot. By my plume ! which I’ve not 
seen for a year, I think that would be safety ; the 
Turks never look up except in prayer, and the wolf 
Azrael seldom prays. But God pity us ! there they are 
coming. 


From Jericho to Jordan, 


109 


‘*To the tombs, master ! On the left." 

Refuge for jackals? " 

“Yes, but also for the miserable, living and dead ! 
Now haste ! " 

Sir Charleroy obeyed quickly, but recoiled with a 
groan of disgust as he suddenly pushed against an 
entombed body. He touched his hilt, as if determined 
to abandon attempt at flight, and then, overcoming the 
rash impulse to confront the pursuers, turned about, 
seized the corpse, and dragging it from its place, hurled 
it over the river bank into the torrent. He was in the 
dispoiled nich in an instant. A cry from the pursuers 
drew him forth. “ See, Ichabod, the Turks are running 
along the river banks watching the mummy bobbing 
along in the torrent. See, it sinks. Ah, the 
brutes, how they shout ! They think that body 
alive, and that one poor slave is hounded to death." 

“Jehovah Jeireh, now help us; they’ll soon be back," 
cried Ichabod. 

“ Ah, I forgot ; they’ll remember there were two of 
us." 

“ Calm, Sir Knight, * By this sign I conquer,’ quot- 
ing thy words of another. I’ll go forth; the only one 
left ; at least so they’ll think." 

Sir Charleroy turned and looked at the Jew, and was 
amazed to see him binding in front of himself a board 
having the ominous words, “ Unclean ’’ upon it. 

“ What ; thou, a Jew, and touch that foul thing, worn 
to festering death by some leper ! " 

“ Better night and a clean soul, though in a body 
burned by the cursed leprosy, than life in Moslem 
slavery." 


V 


I lo The Queen of the House of David, 

But what if the disease cleave to thee, and we 
escape ? ” 

“ Sir Knight, thou wilt live to tell others that a once 
hated Jew was led of thee to truth, and after died a 
living death, that his benefactors might survive. I 
think such deeds cause noble lights to glow in human 
souls.” 

“ God bless and pity thee, Ichabod.” 

“Ah, he does; even now. I see the scarlet line of 
Rahab, and it bin4s the pestilence that walketh by 
noonday. 

The furious pursuers spurred their steeds up toward 
the tombs, but as they beheld the solitary man, sitting 
in painful attitude with beggar-like palm extended and 
wearing the dread sign, they rapidly wheeled their 
steeds about and galloped away. The Moslem had 
heard that a Jew would suffer any torture rather than 
ceremonial pollution ; hence judged that the object 
before them could not be the refugee they sought. 

“ I wonder not that the demoniac cut himself madly 
when among the tombs, good Jew. Sure it’s like going 
to glory to get out once more. Methinks freedom is 
only sweet when taken with fresh air! Well, we are 
out and the enemy thwarted.” 

“ Methinks, master, that the leper that died here, 
leaving no legacy but the sign of his death, did some 
good in unknowingly making me his heir.” 

“And the corpse I disposed of so unceremoniously 
left me a house of safety, though small and musty. 
I’ve a bitter thought. 

“ So, Sir Charleroy, tell it me, perhaps I can sweeten 

it.’^ 


From Jericho to Jordan. HI 

I, the heir for a little time of that soulless clay, am 
like it.” 

“ Not much being here and alive.” 

“ I rather think like it. See me tossed about by 
strangers, robbed of my rights, helpless to resist fate’s 
tides, begrudged the room I occupy, and not one who 
once knew me to weep over my besetments. 

Sir Knight, the miracles of our frequent preserva- 
tion should make our murmurings dumb.” 

In the evening Jordan ebbed a little and the two 
wanderers passed over. Nor did they regret the con- 
sequent immersing in its flood. No word was spoken 
as they passed through the current, for, before they 
entered, having remembered that at this Bethabara 
ford man’s Savior was baptized, they were each busy 
with his own meditations. When they stood on the 
other shore, Sir Charleroy reverently said : “ Comrade, 
I prayed as we passed that we might have the dove of 
peace henceforth above our souls at least.” 

“ I prayed on my part that God would accept the act 
as the Christian’s typical burial to the w'orld and separ- 
ation from its sins.” 

'' How like death and birth is that beautiful type. 
They level all life.” 

“Are our lives leveled? knight.'' 

“Henceforth ; and we are brethern.” 

“ And our King and Savior was baptized here by the 
herald of His Kingdom, John^” 

“Yea; here the new Judaism was formally inaugu- 
rated. Tradition says also that Jesus baptized his 
mother afterward at this ford.” 

“How filial; hQW beautiful; how expressive! He 


1 1 2 The Queen of the House of David, 

was her God,, yet her son, she his mother and disciple ; 
and each by all ties and forms bound together in a fel- 
lowship of helpfulness. 

“The Jqw’s an interpreter.” 

“Sir Charleroy sweetens my trust as Jordan sweet- 
ens the bitter waters of Bahr Lut. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE FEAST OF THE ROSE. 

* They arise now like the stars before me. 

Through the long, long night of years ; 

Some are bright with heavenly radiance, 

And others shine out through our tears. 

They arise, too, like mystical flowers, 

All different and all the same — 

As they lie on my heart like a garland 
That is wreathed around mary’s name,’* 

OOD morning and a blessing, comrade.” It 
was the greeting of the Jew to the knight 
who lay asleep under a palm the day after 
the flight. The sleeper slowly rising, 

murmured : 

Tm half vexed at thee, Ichabod ; thou hast dis- 
solved a dream filled with sights of home and mother.” 

“ I’ve brought lentils, barley, and grape-clusters ; 
they are better than dreams when the sun is up.” 

“ To those sad when awake, joyful dreams arc wel- 
come.” 

“ There are real joys just before us.” 

** Real joys, just before us? Grim sarcasm ; a sorry 
jest, Jew! ” 

** No ; oh, no. I’m telling thee the smiling, clean- 




1 14 The Queen of the House of David, 

faced truth. We'll be safe at Jabbock’s city by sun- 
set ! " 

“Safe? safe? I'm unused to that word; almost 
afraid of it. What does it mean in this country ? " 

“ Oh, these cavalrymen ! always on the charge ; now 
here, now there. Thy thoughts go by habit, some- 
times racing forward, sometimes retreating. A while 
ago thou wert as full of faith as Gideon, now thou art 
as timorous as Canaan's spies." 

“ My habits have grown fat by feeding on piebald 
experiences.” 

“ Experience is a lying prophet, when it counts with- 
out reckoning God.” 

“ I can not see a step ahead. That's certainty to 
me, though thou callest it doubt. I know not how to 
hang rainbows upon the ghostly brows of the future 
when I've no power to lay hand on the ghostly form 
and have no rainbows.” 

“ He that lifted the burdens of the past from off us 
holds the changing winds of the future in His fists. 
One second of life goes ever with only one second of 
care. I learned this of Sir Charleroy long ago. Now 
he forgets his own teachings. Shall I call him Reuben, 
never excelling because unstable as water? ” 

“ Call me slave: Uncertainty's slave! Thou didst 
waken me from a dream of home, to the shock of 
remembering again that I was homeless, dead to all 
that once made life worth living. The gorgeous hopes 
of thy fertile mind are mocked by stern present facts.” 

“Odd talk from one just dreaming of his mother; a 
good woman didst say? then very hopeful; all good 
women are. Then remember how thou didst lift me 


The Feast of the Rose. 1 1 5 

to the very gates of heaven yesterday. Thou canst not 
see a step ahead ? Well, then look back ; miles ; years. 
Was not our God in thy battles in the thickets; in the 
mountains; in Jordan? My poor reasoning tells me 
that He has wrought too much for us to drop us 
now. He must get His reward in keeping us to the 
end.” 

** Some of the past makes me shudder, Ichabod.” 

“ Pick out the best, not the worst. We escaped the 
very Gehenna at Jericho, following murderers, the 
storm, slavery; now free, fed, rested, the eastern air 
washed and sunned to a tonic. Fm drinking lotus balm 
out of it.” 

“ There it is ; the sun’s in thy brain, poet-preacher.” 

“ No, Fm only giving thee back some of thine own 
sermons. I draw from my own heart no monster 
memories. If I’ve fought hard battles it sufficeth 
that I have fought them once. I’ll not recall their 
bloody sweat and tears for the sake of relighting them. 
No, Fm going back to the sweet, happy hours of baby- 
hood ; for I tell thee, knight, there is a world of joy to 
a man, scorched by stern experience, to forget himself 
sometimes back to the lullabys and warblings of the 
days of his innocence.” 

“ I can’t do it,” 

“ I can’t help doing it, especially in this place ! My 
whole being feeds on a present scent of home.” 

Thou knowest the country hereabouts ? ” 

“ My soul laughs in friendiy converse with these 
crocuses, pinks, and asphodels, turning the velvet, 
grassy plains to palace carpets. Fm saying to myself 
these blossoms must know me, their bowing heads 


1 16 The Queen of the House of David, 

and offered odors being my reward for nursing their 
mothers when I was a boy.” 

“ Well, flowers are sincere friends ; they never change 
and are all charitable. That’s why they are deemed fit 
presents to those in prison, or proper offering to be laid 
on the breast of the dead Magdalene.” 

Ah, dead Magdalene ; for even the symbol of a 
broken promise ; born to be a queen of love, by per- 
verted love dethroned ! Woman, man’s ward, by man 
betrayed ; the guide star setting in black night ; the 
savior of human purity befouling all purity ! Given 
the power by which Eve was to crush the serpent’s 
head and using it to breed all serpentine ills. This is 
Eve turning a volcano upon Eden. Put flowers upon 
her once passionate, now dead, heart, in awful contrast ! 
Nature at her worst is intensified anguish ; at her best 
an ocean of joy, an universe of light and song. So I 
learn of nature under man. Listen to nature’s per- 
fumed throb now : these thousands of feathered song- 
sters, millions of lesser creatures, whose melody is 
larger than themselves and more perceptible. Hear 
the humming, thrumming, buzzing, trumpetings. 
Oh, this is life as the All-Saving tuned it to utter 
joy ! It widens, deepens, thickens ; getting sweeter, 
louder, happier all the way. A tempest, set to music, 
knight. I’m caught in it’s whirl and join in its prais- 
ings. It comes over me as an insight of what nature 
really is. God cares for it all and made it thus, to 
throb and exult ! ” Ichabod paused in transport. 
“ But I sometimes think there’s a great waste of these 
things ; there is so much in places where there is no 
human ear or eye to hear or see,” 


The Feast of the Rose. 1 17 

“ Reuben is narrow-viewed just now. Man is not 
all! God makes happiness because He is so full of 
goodness He must. Our rabbis call Him ‘ The Foun- 
tain.’ There is no waste I He makes these things for 
His own joy, and, methinks, looks down from the circle 
of the heavens to say to what is in the desert or wild- 
erness, ‘ Very good.’ Then, beyond this, I’ve sometimes 
thought He kept the processions of joy and beauty 
moving along ; coming, going, dying, living, ending and 
beginning again, as a sort of practice ; by action keep- 
ing all fresh and new. He causes things of beauty and 
power to pass through His divine alchemy from one 
glory to another, as the general causes his squadrons 
to move through jthe evolutions of the battle before 
the conflict. The Father is awaiting man’s hour, man’s 
return from sinning; the time for millennial advent;, 
then all delights, as if fresh born, all goods newly har- 
vested, will appear to be multiplied, intensified, trans- 
figured. That will be the beginning of hereafter.” 

“ Oh, Israel, the sun is in thy brain. I forget all 
logic of contention, charmed out of words, by feasting 
on thy orisons. Go on, Jew.” 

“Then I’ll say ’twas God, not chance, nor fate, that 
brought us to wander alone with nature. Read well 
nature’s book that lies open in the lap of the Great 
Teacher ! Only stand close to Him and He will hold 
the torch, turn the pages and give the sure interpreta- 
tions of the sweetness that feeds quiet, the picturesque- 
ness which evokes smiles and the stately grandeurs 
which beget faith.” 

** Israel, thou climbest the sun-ladder to rhapsody I ” 

** Whether soaring, climbing, or creeping, I know 


Ii8 The Queen of the House of David, 

not; but this I know, I’m tasting in these wanderings 
God’s kisses. They are in the flowers ; my spirit rests 
on His as my body on the balm of the fresh breezes. 
Then, animate nature seems so contented and happy ! 
Why, I’ve been ravished by the songsters; as I’ve said 
.to myself, they echo the angelic anthem of heaven, 
peace. Had any such doubt as haunts thee, come to 
me, since passing Jordan, it would have been sung out 
of countenance by the winged warblers or dragged 
from my heart captive in floral fetters by Him that 
hath two staves, beauty and bands.” 

Oh, Ichabod, do not pause. Go on, I pray thee.” 

“ Then thou art glad to hear that nature is not a 
beautiful widow mourning her dead bridegroom 
through the ages ? ” 

“ I love to listen to thee.” 

“ Listen to a wiser. See those stately heliotropes. 
They stand above all of their kind with shining faces ; 
great in aspiration, great in devotion. All day they 
turn toward the sun and when their blossoms fade they 
leave a hardy seed. The winter may bury it, but it 
springs forth in vernal days, strong in the life it won 
by loving the summer sun.” 

Ichabod, I’m charmed ! Let’s abide here always 
amid these joys of nature.” 

“ What, be hermits? ” 

“Yes; life’s troubles are made by its people; the 
fewer people the fewer troubles.” 

“ While sharing their troubles may we not lessen 
them. No man may live to himself ; we’re wedded to 
each other.” 

“Yes, wedded tp life. A royal phrase; since I’ve 


The Feast of the Rose. 


110 


been constantly either hating or loving it ; fearing to 
live and then fearing to die. Wedded ! ah, ha, ha; the 
wedded are those who most madly love and then most 
bitterly hate.” 

“ Say sometimes ; then thou’lt be like the stopped 
horologue, telling the true time once in twenty-four 
hours, at least.” 

“Thy poetry runs into caustic quality. What hast 
thou been lunching on since morn ? ” 

“ At least not on Dead Sea apples, fair without, ashes 
within. My poetry, if I have any, always sings in 
accord with the company it keeps.” 

“ How many more arrows in thy quiver, hast thou ? ” 

“ Only one, and that a question ; does my master in- 
tend to foreswear marriage himself? He ridicules it.” 

“ I have already done so.” 

“Well, 'tis well thou didst not live in Rome, for its 
citizens that dared to live amid the temptations and 
soul-crampings of voluntary bachelorhood were highly 
taxed for their disregard of the claims of society and 
the state.” 

“Yet even the Romans ever deemed bachelorhood 
a blessing. In this opinion royal Claudius decreed that 
the sailors who brought to Rome a ship loaded from 
the wheat graneries of Egypt in the time of Agabus's 
famine, should be as a reward permitted to remain un- 
married. If I were a Roman and a sailor Fd pray for 
a famine and a Claudius.” 

“ A world without wives ? . What a world ! ” 

So saying Ichabod caught up a stick and began 
marking on the earth. 

“ How now, Israel; some sorcery ? ” 


120 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ No — yet, may be, yes. I’ll picture a world with- 
out women.” 

The Jew outlined the Egyptian deity, “ KnephT 
“ What have we, man or beast ? ” 

“Truly, I think partly both. The knight has de- 
scribed his Elysium and I have here pictured a fit king 
for it. Behold thy god, sworn celibate. Egypt’s 
adored Kneph. Is this hideous enough V* 

“ A god ! well he’s not handsome ; a ram’s head ; 
four horns ; two up,, two down ; armed as both ram and 
goat ? ” 

“ Both were sacred to him in Egypt ; also the horned 
snake with which Cleopatra put out her life ; poor, un- 
fortunate man-wrecked beauty.” 

“ But, Jew, thou dost dawdle ! What of this play ? ” 
“ Oh, nothing, only Kneph would do well for a sailor, 
at Rome, under Claudius, in famine time ! ” 

“ My poet wanders, but yet stings.” 

“ So ? Kneph was a god that boasted, or rather his 
spokesmen did, that he was the father of his mother. 
What economy! No need to be grateful to or love a 
mother ; no need to wear a wife on the heart. The 
folly of a dark age by folly darkened in the mad at- 
tempt to lift up man without his purer better part.” 

“How strange, Jew, whenever we touch a new 
belief, or an old one, new to us, we find peoples fol- 
lowing an idea or ideal. There has been a crying 
through the world ever for a some one for pilgrim 
man to follow. How passing strange ; our century 
wails the self-same cry ; and somehow it always hap- 
pens that this matter has something to do with woman. 
See ; ‘ Kneph ’ was the monstrous birth of those who 


The Peast of the Rose, 12 1 

thought man superlative, and greatness to be by being 
all man. How sharply the devotion to the Madonna 
cuts across this ! She was rriother of the noblest, and 
man in the begetting left out. Oh, my head’s full of 
thoughts, but they tumble along toward my lips with- 
out system or leader. I talk like a madman, though I 
think like a Seraph.” 

“ I think. Sir Gharleroy, that a healthy son of Adarri 
sneering at all women, publicly, reproaches himself as 
being one who never knew a true one.” 

“ More javelins ! I’d swear, anyhow, that if I’d been 
Adam, no winged serpent of gaudy colors and honey- 
tongue could have lured me from Paradise, Eve or no 
Eve!” ’ 

“ If thou hadst been there thou wouldst have been 
lonesome with the speechless herds ; finding the new 
woman, would have loved her like the boy who mates 
just to see how it seems.” 

‘‘ Oh, likely 1 ” 

*^Then if thy ward or angel attempted to elope 
with the devil thou wouldst have gone along, too, 
from curiosity, as lad to a hippodrome, just to see the 
finish ; or as thousands of men since Adam, tied to 
wayward women, have gone down with them to dark- 
nees, preferring hell with their idols to heaven with- 
out.” 

“ I suppose so. Oh, how strangely are the fates of 
men and women interwoven.” 

“Then thou dost not now elect to live a hermit, 
without the companionship of the frail, fair and faithful 
sex which are said to double our joys? ” 

“ Yes and multiply our sorrows ! ” 


12^ The House of the Queen of David, 

“ I suspect thou’lt change thy late creed very soon/* 
Why so ? " 

“ I expect ere long that we’ll meet some living blos- 
soms.” 

“ By my token, that’s good news, Ichabod.” 

“So, then, thou art ready to recant?” 

Evening came, and the pilgrims supped on the mea- 
ger meat they were able to procure in the fields. 

“ Now poet of the Palm Land mellow my dreams by 
possessing me of thy meditations. What fixes thy 
gaze ? ” 

“The monarch of the sky ; after a day such as this 
has been, he seems to me to take his departure with a 
peculiar sort of triumphal sweep of his trailing splen- 
dors.” 

“ Horus exulting over prostrate Set.” 

“ But night, not the green-colored son of Osiris, con- 
quers now, master. 

“Night never conquers. It merely lives by suffer- 
ance ; often routed by the invincible spears of the sun. 
Darkness creeps forth here because the golden charger 
in masterful strategy has gone elsewhere to rout other 
armies of the dark kingdom. Lay this to thy heart, 
good Jew.’ ’ 

“ I do, as precious ointment to a blister. Enlarge me.” 

“There, Jew; see the fleecy clouds over Jordan. 
How grand ! ” 

“Yea, as I’ve often seen them ; some like alabaster 
thrones, and others like ships on fire, while others are 
like silver castles, banded with cornelian and gold, with 
here and there hyacinthian shields hung on their bat- 
tlements, all fresh as the stones in heaven’s foundation 


The Feast of the Rose, 


123 


walls! How they career and float along the empur- 
pled ocean of the west ! 1 forget myself even 

now into their midst. Oh, knight, such pictures, 
such visions make my soul shout in peals of holy 
laughter.” 

“ My Israel, the sun which woos the earth into making 
love to him with flowers never sets in thy brain ; thou 
livest in the poet’s constant noon.” 

“ But we both are changing. Even the knight gets 
mellow. Hardship, the sun and faith are working in 
us both for good.” 

^‘Getting to be? No; thou wert and art poet, 
painter and singer; all in one. If the world does not 
hear thee the Seraphim will, by and by.” 

I’ve noticed that souls unbent from some long, twisting 
pain, run, aspire and play. It is mercy’s rest, reward.” 

“ God fits some especially to catch passing joys, Icha- 
bod.” 

“ Yea, and it all comes from a serene fai^h that all 
is very good as He made it. I’m just opening to the 
Sun Eternal, at whose right hand are pleasures ever- 
more. I love thy wakening touch, my guide.” 

‘‘Ah, I’m a bungling player on the harp of thy soul, 
but I love thy melody. Child of nature, speak more 
and more to me.” 

“ I can but ill tell all. I’m dumb amid the waves of 
peace which enhalo, the hopes that thrill, the views of 
truth that fill my being.” 

“ I believe thee on my soul, Jew. I’d stop now to 
remember a little, perhaps to sleep, since so I can follow 
dreams that would craze me to contemplate awake ; but 
if we now sleep, pray God our day-dreams go on and on. 


124 The Queen of the House of David. 

I think we are pilgrims following spiritual ti uthsi 
They’ll lead us on high; let’s not miss their direction.” 

“ One may sleep, master, when he can not think; for 
me, now. I’d rather court, awake, my mind’s guests, for 
a time, meanwhile gainsaying the lullabys of cricket 
and nightingale now floating out from every bush.'’ 

“ So be it. How shall we proceed to pass the time ? ” 

“ Can we set up an Ebenezer? God hitherto hath 
helped us.” 

“ I have it; we’ll to the feast.” 

‘‘Well, we have what some great kings have not, and 
so shall find joy in a feast. We have appetite ! ” 

“ Thou dost miss my meaning, though thy point is 
prime. We seldom think to thank the Giver for the 
power to enjoy as well as for the enjoyable. I knew a 
French prince, once, who said he’d give his birthright 
for one good dinner, and he was no Esau, either. He 
had dinners and dinners, but what were they along 
with premature decay gnawing at his vitals like a rat, 
while he himself could eat less than a babe ? ” 

“ I see ; the knight would have us thankfully com- 
memorate to-day’s enjoyment of nature.” 

“Just so ; I think, in loving nature, because we begin 
to understand her, we will be on our way to all the nat- 
ural joy of which she is God’s interpreter.” 

“ But our feast ? ” 

“ The stars are out on the blue ; their queen will 
soon come up from the sea, then I’ll induct thee into 
the feast of the ‘ Rose.’ The rose is the queen of 
flowers, and flowers the thoughts of God ! ” 

“The feast of the Rose! I’ve heard it was a licen- 
cious, heathen orgy ! ” 


The Peast of the Rose: 


125 


It was then a shameful misnomer. My Mary found 
it ; transformed it. Out of it, through reverence of her, 
comes a beautiful observance. See here, Jew." 

So saying, the knight took from his bosom a string 
of precious stones and arranged them, as they glowed 
under the moonlight, on the ground heart-shaped. 

The knight then questioningly observed the Jew. 

The latter shook his head and remarked : 

“ I’ve seen such often among the Arabs. They have 
a prayer for each bead to be said the night after the 
death of one of their number, believing the shade de- 
parts not to Hades ’till the prayers are said. Thou 
dost not practice their enchantments?" 

Bah ! Never. My gemmed circle has a deeper, 
holier significance. Each pendant is to recall to mind 
some virtue or event in the saintly Mary’s life. Then 
there are guilds called, ‘ Brothers of the Rosary.’ I 
belong to one such ; each member is sworn to pray for 
all the others wherever scattered. The Turks may 
have had a praying string, but the Crusaders have 
appropriated and applied it to nobler uses." 

“Tell me more of it, if there be more." 

“ There are but fifteen in my brotherhood." 

“ Only fifteen, no room for me? " said the Jew. 

“Fifteen; to suggest the fifteen great events* in 
Mary’s life; namely, the Annunciation', Gabriel an 
nounced to Mary that she was to be the Mother of 
Jesus ; the Visitation ; Mary in the Gospel spirit went 
quickly to tell her kinswoman of her promised favor ; the 
Birth of Jesus, this was the crowning joy ; then here is the 
gem that recalls th^ Presentation offestisvcitho. Temple. 
Thou knowest, Jew, thy fathers often wondered how, 




1 26 The Queen of the House of David, 

after all, a lamb, an animal, could stand between 
offended Deity and man. Jesus in the Temple was 
the fulfillment or explanation of the mystery ! ” 

“Yea, truly. I’ve seen this. Oh, that all my people 
could also see it ! ” 

“ Then, here is the jewel that reminds us of the - 
‘ Scourging at the pillar^ of Him ‘ by whose stripes we 
are healed.’ ” 

“ Israel reads Isaiah with darkened mind, my loving 
guide. I’ve seen this. Oh, that my people could. ” 
“Here is the jewel that recalls the ‘ Crownbig with 
thorns' of Him that hath to give, at His right hand, 

‘ pleasures forever more.’ He wore that thorny coro- 
net that His redeemed should return with singing, 
crowned with everlasting joy.” 

“ I’ve felt it ; feel it now. Hallelujah ! ” 

“This one is to commemorate ^ Jesus hearing the 
Cross;' this one ^ His crucifixion^ and this ^ His resur- 
rection.' " 

“ The hope of hopes by our Saducees denied ! ” 

“Then we have here another to remind us of our 
Saviour’s * Ascension/ with His pregnant promise of a 
royal return to take at last His children home.” 

“ Come, Lord Jesus, even so, quickly ! ” cried Ichabod. 

Wait patiently for Him and He will give thee the 
desire of thy heart,’ oh, heir of faithful Abraham ! ” 

“ I weary sometimes, my loved teacher.” 

“ So do we, of our brotherhood ; but here is a thought 
of rest; this bead recalls '’Pentecost.' We are led of 
the Spirit, which guides to all truth and comforts by 
the way.” 

“ But what has all this to do with Mary?” 


The Feast of the Rose, 


127 


Oh, here are two beads ; one reminds us of her 
‘ Assumption ’ into heaven, the other of her ‘ Crowning' " 

“ Was she crowned ? ” 

“ Yea, in heaven, for the Son of Mary promised to 
His faithful ones this exaltation; I appoint unto you a 
Kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me^ ye which 
have continued with me in my temptation.’ Surely, 
she that followed him from the pains of parturition, 
as an outcast, to the Cross and the sepulcher, CON- 
TINUED ! ” 

“ I would I could have been there to enter the race 
for such crowning.” 

“ ‘ He hath made us kings and priests unto God ; 
if we suffer we shall also reign with Him,’ Jew.” 

“ Hallelujah! would I could shout it to heaven ; no, 
I do; but rather to all Jewry!” exclaimed the Is- 
raelite. 

“ John was only a ^ voice crying in the wilderness,’ as 
he thought, but he was heard at the palace and down 
the ages. Even now I voice his words in this lone 
place.” 

“Thou didst not tell me of the meaning of that black 
and red pendant,” said Ichabod, interrupting. 

“Oh, Gethsemane, Jesus, the intercessor for the 
world, ‘ who ever lives to intercede.’ The black sign 
is of that.” 

“ Then I’ve a Saviour in glory praying for me. Oh, 
this is balm and water to me ! Why do I dare to think of 
myself as a poor Jew ! God pity ; no, forgive me ! I, rer 
pining sometimes and yet defended in glory ; honored 
by royal adoption, elected of God, called to kingship ! 

“ How we do go up and down ; sometimes thoU; 3ome^ 


128 The Queen of the House of David. 

times I. Now I’m leading, awhile ago ’twas thou. 
Yea, we are all dependants; but this is healthful med- 
itation, Ichabod, and thy confession rebukes me as well.” 

Is this all of the feast ? ” 

“Oh, no. Here are some tokens to remind us of 
Mary’s life ; so brief, so useful. See, here, five gems 
that remind us of the wounds of her son ; her wounds, 
as well, for the sword that pierced Him pierced through 
to her soul also. At each of these emblems we ‘ Ros- 
aiy Brothers ’ repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Last of all, 
reverently clasping this crucifix, we sacredly repeat 
the Apostle’s Creed, the same as I taught thee at 
Jericho.” 

“ I remember, as I do the watercourses, when thirsty.” 

“ What think’st thou of all this formality? Is it like 
the Arabic mummeries ? ” 

“ No, they are mocking devils, are they not ? ” 

“I am not to judge of their sincerity, nor their needs^ 

1 nor art thou.” 

“ Master, I wish I could be a Rosary Brother. Me- 
thinks it would help my ambling faith sometimes, if I 
could touch a token.” 

“ He above is all tender of baby faiths that can do 
no better than amble. Remember the words of thy 
own Hosea : ‘ I drew them with cords of a man, with 
bonds of love, I taught Ephriam to go ; taking them 
by the arms ; just as a mother teaches her babe to walk,’' 
is it not ? ” 

“ Even so. Does the Rosary help some to walk ? ” 

“ I believe it does.” 

“ Tell me more about it.” 

“ The Crusaders were the first to call Mary ‘ The Rose/ 


The Feast of the Rose, 


129 


To almost all mankind that flower has ever been the 
emblem of pure, unselfish love, and when the soldiers 
of the Cross grew to understand the character of her 
that gave the world its Saviour, they could think of no 
title mare fitting for that queenly woman.” 

“ I’ve an Egyptian rosary, knight. See, I wear it 
on this golden chain, next my heart, for its safety ” 

“To ward off witchcraft?” 

“ Bah ! ’Tis a toy in usefulness. I keep it, think- 
ing it may work incantation with the money-lender, 
and so save me sorhetime from starvation.” Then the 
Jew laughed aloud at his own wit. It seemed very 
ridiculous to him to liken his talisman to the real 
rosary or its saint.” 

“ Wouldst thou let me examine it, Jew ? ” 

The latter handed to the knight a chain and image. 

“ Egyptian ? ” 

“An image of Neb-ta, sister of Isis, the wife of the 
Sun God Osiris. It was given me by a Copt priest, 
whom I saved from drowning in the Nile,” 

“ A Copt? ” 

“ A Copt. He was a professed Christian ; but, like 
some of the ancestral Egyptians, sought to be right by 
being a little of every thing. He was very supersti- 
tious, though he thought himself very broad-minded. 
He was quite certain that Coptic Christianity was true, 
though not equally certain that his pagan ancestors 
were in faith all false. He thought he’d be on the safe 
side by mixing a little of all creeds with his own, and 
so he prayed in Christ’s name and also Neb-ta’s.” 

“ A pretty fool, Jew.” 

“Yea. He had a story about the goddess, very 


1 30 The Queen of the House of David. 

pretty when not absurd, running somehow thus : When 
Osiris was cut to pieces by Set, a type of day slain by 
night, I think, Neb-ta went round the world with her 
widowed sister, Isis, to gather up the fragments of her 
spouse. Isis is the moon above ; below, reproduction. 
She is pictured in Egypt, as all the female deities, with 
two eggs and a half-circle at the side, to express the 
latter idea. Isis has in her hand also this sign — a 
cross supporting an egg, to typify immortality. The 
old Egyptian priest told me this sympathetic Neb-ta, 
if I trusted her, would reward me for saving his life, by 
defending my case in Hades. There is a good deal of 
mysticism in all this, but I rather prize the gift, since 
it reminds me that I once saved a man.’' 

“ But, Nourahmal ? Since thou knew of Mary thou 
hast saved a woman, Jew.” 

The Jew was silent. The knight continued: 

These philosophic, inseeing, sign-writing, symbol- 
making Egyptians were pilgrims, too ; a nation of 
'graal-seekers ; after an idea, example. I see always the 
huge Sphinx coming before me when I think of 
them.” , • 

The Sphinx ! Well, that’s strange. I’d never think 
of that, unless I happened upon something very big 
and very meaningless ! ” . 

No, no ; the people that rocked the cradle of re- 
ligions in their infancy, wrought all their theology into 
that one mighty symbol, to endure and challenge com- 
pare with all that man should find beside.” 

I do not see how ! ” 

“ The Sphinx faces the East — light ! ” 

True!” 


The Feast of the Rose, 1 3 1 

“ It can not reach that light toward which it looks, 
neither could the Nubians." 

“All true." 

“ It was part man, part beast ; but the upper part 
was man, and this is what we think we know, and all 
of man ? " 

“Oh, knight, Phthah, the ‘beautiful-faced,’ ‘secret- 
opener ’ of the Nile gods has touched thee." 

“ The Sphinx was like man’s thought ; too great for 
words ; at least such words as men can now fit to their 
lips." 

“ I see ; it’s all coming into my mind, master." 

“ It sat still and was silent, but the world went on ; 
the thought it expressed reached hearts after the men 
that formed the image had passed away. The truth 
lives ever, and can not die until it completes its pur- 
pose." 

“ Thou art a magician, who pleases, astonishes, 
excites, instructs, and at the same time plays with 
me as if I were a pigmy ! " 

“ It’s not I, but the truth. The Sphinx again! Its 
hugeness, truth expressed, appears mighty when placed 
by our sides." 

“ Tell me where I am ! Shall I fling Neb-ta away as 
a bauble, or beg its pardon for hanging so much mean- 
ing to a fool’s neck? ’’ 

“ Vehement 1 The sun is in thy head ! ’’ 

“ But shall I sit and look as a Sphinx, or run mad 
because I can’t?" 

“ Be calm, and let me tell thee that the dwellers by 
the mighty Nile plagued themselves with lasting dark- 
ness when they banished the people whose leader’s face 


13:2 The Queen of the House of David, 

shone from communion with Jehovah. They clung to 
some half truths, left them by the progeny of Joseph, 
but the half was dimmed by courted lusts.” 

“But my people had no Neb-ta, no women divinities 
to leave in Egypt.” 

“ No, yet Egypt, aiming to exalt the tender, the beau- 
tiful, the mother, incarnated certain virtues, and lo, a 
woman deity ! It was an effort to find the ‘ Rose.’ 
The nation was in a vast, serious pilgrimage through all 
their dynasties after an idea, a pattern ; an opportunity 
to reach and to express the best things. I tell thee, 
Jew, the heathen nations sit in darkness; this side 
and that, along the track of time, holding here and 
there a torch, waiting through the night whose hours 
are tolled off at century intervals, for something. Some 
One. There have passed before them like phantoms, 
gods and gods; man invented, man evolved ; but none 
of these tarried, none satisfied. Oh, ‘ the Isles wait for 
Thee,’ Jesus, Thou Ideal Man, and also for the true con- 
ception of Mary the ideal woman ! ” 

“For two Gods? Is Mary divine? ” 

“ Did I say that? Nay, as the child Jesus was sub- 
ject to her, so she was subject to the Christ, at 
last. Christ was the Word, Mary His blessed, echo; 
Christ the Sun, Mary the Moon that reflected that 
light, showing its beauty in woman’s life ! ” 

“ But now, what shall I do with my beautiful fright, 
Neb-ta, Sir Charleroy ? ” 

“ Put her away, in mind, amid the galaxies of 
woman deities ; mythical in all but the pitiful sincerity 
of the adoration of their devotees and in the greatness 
of the truths they vaguely articulated. See, I’ll inter- 


The Feast of the Rose, 


133 


pret : Isis going round the world to gather up the 
fragments of her dismembered husband. Woman’s 
ministry ; the restoration of man ; wife consecration to 
an only love. Then there was not only beautiful wid- 
owhood, second only to beautiful wifehood, but also 
the spinister sister. Hail Egypt ! Thy Sphinx saw 
further than our peoples of boasted civilizations. At 
our best we never rose so near to a just altitude as to 
attempt the deification of the maiden sister, the omni- 
present angel, who mothers other people’s children as 
if they were her own. Egypt worshipped mother- 
hood, perhaps grossly, in adoring the earth’s fructifica- 
tions, but she did not overlook those pious souls who 
in a glorious self-abnegation play waiting-maids to the 
real queens of earth, the child-bearers. I’d never 
tire praising the child-bearers, or all who love them, 
for they that bring forth a life are greater than the 
greatest kingly man-slayer on earth. The world is 
upside down ; no religion is wholly false that aids to 
right it in any degree. Hail, creeds of Egypt, or any 
other land, that seek to efface from fame’s pages the 
names of life-destroyers that thereon may chiefly 
shine the names of those who give or save life.” 

“Oh, oscillating Sir Charleroy, thou art just and 
courtly now.” 

“ Praise me, then ! Mankind would average better 
by far than it does if all were right half the time.” 

“ Would I could gather all the threads of to-day’s 
blessed communings into a golden band to support 
over my heart faith’s breastplate.” 

“I can give thee its summary: God, a beauty Crea- 
tor, out of all things hideous in His good Providence 


134 Queen of the House of David. 

will emerge the fine, tender and loving. Neb-ta, Egypt’s 
ideal, carried the lotus, the flower of unrestrained 
pleasure, as her scepter; Neb-ta-like the influences 
that sway most human hearts to-day; but the Rose of 
the world has blossomed. Mary, the flower of women. 
They that love and serve, as that warm, red-hearted 
woman, shall at last reign in eternal bliss within the 
ruby walls of the New Jerusalem.” 

“I’m with the knight, to proclaim thy Rose!” 

A good profession! It will be well if we remember 
that woman is as essential to religion as religion to 
women. As for man he needs the one as the inter- 
preter of the other. Therefore, it was that God sent 
to earth a flower that could talk.” 



CHAPTER X. 


AFTER EVE, ESTHER OR MARY? 

Still slowly passed the melancholy day, 

And still the stranger wist not where to stray : 

The world was sad — the Garden was a wild ; 

And man, the hermit, sighed — till woman smiled.” 

— Milton. 

HE Israelites, along Jabbock, were all aglow 
with preparation for celebrating one of 
their feasts. Sir Charleroy and his com- 
rade journeying along, in the early morn- 
ing, were apprised of the advent of the festivities 
by the passing near them of a company of maidens, 
marching and chanting. The pilgrims drew apart and 
sequestered themselves behind a clump of nubt trees 
that they might observe, themselves unobserved, the 
graceful processsion of singers. 

“ Well, my poet, didst thou conjure up these fairies, 
or have we come on the musk-born houri ? ” Sir Charle- 
roy spoke in an absent-minded manner, perhaps, with 
an affectation of a lack of very much interest. In fact, 
long privation of the presence of women had somehow 
rusted from his bearing, in their vicinage, most of the 
confident courtier. In a word, he was now bashful in 
their presence. He spoke with a small witticism to sub- 




136 The Queen of the House of David, 

due, his own embarrassment. His words were unheard, 
for the Jew was all engaged in contemplating the 
passing women. 

In truth, the latter made a striking picture ; garbed 
as they were, in holiday attire ; all young, oriental in 
beauty, and fresh in face, form and action. They were 
rural maidens and that says all. It had been a long 
time since either Ichabod or Sir Charleroy had met 
such types of womanhood ; all free from affectation ; 
all natural and graceful in motion ; a band of women, 
as sisters, bent to one purpose and that a lofty one, 
the proper observance of a joyous, pious, religious cere- 
monial. 

Presently Ichabod drew a long breath and raptur- 
ously exclaimed : “ Praise be to the Patriachs, my 
people ! ” 

^‘Td rather say, Ichabod, praise the Patriarch’s 
daughters, if these be human ! ” 

Ha, ha ! flesh, indeed ! Our Hebrew maidens cele- 
brating the Feast of Esther ! ” 

“ Are they praying God for Adams, so that each 
Esther and Vashti may have one all to herself? If so, 
we are part answers to their prayers.” 

“ Hush such jest ! These be holy maidens, now hon- 
oring our Esther. Thou knowest about her?” 

Certainly ; she was my heroine before Our Lady 
dethroned in my heart all others. I was wont to wish 
I’d been about in Haman’s time. I’d have aroused 
that old dotard, Ahasuerus, right quickly. By the 
sackcloth of Mordecai, if I’d been the king, the 
hanging would have put the Haman family into 
tnourning long before it did.” 


A fter EvCy Esther or Mary, 


137 


“ Oh, how like angels ! It’s years since I saw a woman 
other than as deflowered by harem life. Heavens, 
what a spoiler man is at his worst ! ” 

“ Dost forget Nourahmal ? But no matter ; I admire, 
and wonder that some roving band of Arabs, with 
less piety, or more force than we, does not swoop down 
upon these innocents for seraglio prizes. Perhaps 
these have the liveried angels about, that are said ever 
to guard saintly purity.” 

“ Doubtless ; and besides them, with all the practical 
providence which belongs to the Jew, thou mayst be 
sure that the groves, not far away, are full of fathers, 
brothers, lovers.” 

■“ I wish I were a brother to some of them.” 

"^‘Then thou’dst be a Jew.” 

I’d forget that in being a lover to the others.” 

Thou wouldst not change thy faith for a woman ?” 

“ Now, I’d swear I would not. If like most men, 
and in love. I’d swear I would ; and then, having gotten 
my new priestess, in a little while, backslide and drag 
her with me, or make her heart weep. My comfort in 
the last estate being my consistency, if not my con- 
stancy. What a mad rout it is when religion and love, 
born twins, cross purposes ? ” 

“ That’s a very true, yet bitter speech. I’ll tell the 
Hebrew maidens to beware.” 

“ Better tell me to beware, now. It’s the beginning 
that rnakes the trouble. No beginning, then no after 
folly,” 

The procession glided past and the pilgrims fol- 
lp\y!ec} at a distance. 

We are within an arm of dear old Jabbock,” re- 


138 The Queen of the House of David, 

marked Ichabod, as they came to a river-bank, later. 

“ Ah, ha ! my chartless pilot, does the current whis- 
per its name to thee, in Hebrew? Fd not wonder if it 
did, since every thing is clannish in this country. — I 
hope there is no more swimming for us to do.” 

Its tumbling waters are full of voices tome, blend- 
ing with echoes of things of the past ; but one who 
spoke a thousand times more tenderly than ever spoke 
murmuring waters, told me its name, knight.” 

Nourahmal ? No ! rather some one of those pious 
beauties we passed not long ago. Oh, roguish Icha- 
bod, I remember thou wert away a long time in the 
morning after our breakfast of peas and grapes. But, 
dear Ichabod,” continued Sir Charleroy, feigning 
rebuke, “ didst thou so soon forget thy little convert 
of Jericho? I wonder if thou lifted up thy voice 
and wept when thou kissed the maid that told thee 
the river’s name ? Come, confess, and I’ll call thee 
Isaac.” 

“ Raillery of prime quality, knight ; but raillery and 
ridicule, though keenly pointed, are generally bad ar- 
rows for long range.” 

“ Well, no matter. I’m glad thou knowest the place, 
if thou dost know it. Who told thee the name of this 
water ? ” 

“ One with a voice to me sweeter, kinder than that 
of any betrothed lover’s ever can be.” 

“ Very, very eloquent thou art. Indeed, if we were 
in Italy, I’d guess ’twas a syren had communed with 
thee; in France, a Crusader troubadour ; in Rhineland, 
the water sprite, Lurline ; but, being in this wondrous 
country of revelations, apparitions, prophets, angels 


A fter EvCy Esther or Mary. 1 39 

and the like, I can only as a catechumen, ask thy dul- 
cet informer’s name?” 

“ How oddly thou dost talk when thou talkest as a 
double man ; half sneering infidel ; half Christian 
preacher.” 

“ A truce, Ichabod. That maybe a home-thrust well 
aimed, but it’s enough that one of us be bitter. It’s 
sometimes natural to me, but not to thee.” 

“A bee-sting will redden the high priest’s brow.” 

“Well, I’ll not sting thee. Who gave the name of 
the river ? ” 

“ Master, one to me alone of all the world an angel, 
my mother. I was born near here, and the memories 
of a youth, made happy by one all patient, all loving, 
rises above and survives all changes.” 

“ My noble friend, forgive my repartee. I’m glad, 
truly, that we are .so lucky as to have this knowledge.” 

“ Lucky ? Then all is not fate ; there is some chance, 
if no Providence? ” 

“ Pardon more ; the bee-sting is still on thy brow. 
Ichabod, I can not help my feelings, which sometimes 
make me think that only God can tread the hidden, 
narrow line between stern fate and happy accident. 
They say the Sybil wrote her prophetic decrees upon 
leaves and flung them recklessly to the inconstant 
winds. Just so we’re in decreed courses, swirled by 
chance gusts.” 

“Yet we two are getting on well together.” 

“ So do chance and fate ; the pity is to the waif that 
falls between them.” 

“ I wonder how here, in Holy Land, thou canst think 
pf any control but Providence/’ 


140 The Queen of the House of David, 

Wonder? So do I. I’m a bundle of wonderings.” 

Listen to Jabbock.” 

I do, more attentively than Jabbock to me. What 
of it ?” 

“ Grander rivers are forgotten ; why is it so remem- 
bered?” 

‘‘ We’re forgotten, meaner men remembered.” 

‘‘This river sings through the centuries of history 
the song of a fugitive of pale heart, who in sheer 
desperation, long, long ago, seized a fleeting hope and 
became a prince, having power to prevail with God.” 

“Ah, Jacob, wLo worked fourteen years to win a 
woman. It was, Tm sure, the woman that nerved him 
to attempt greatness. Such a woman! Had shebeen 
like our moderns she would have jilted him, or eloped 
with him, before the end of one of the fourteen years.” 

“Til not tilt with thy sarcasms. It were much bet- 
ter to remember that he, a pigmy, the night in his soul, 
as that about him, black as Erebus, grappled with the 
mighty, unknown, unseen apparition to find he was 
holding Deity. The mysteries of crossing fates and 
chances are as open nut-bur compared to that of all 
weakness prevailing with Omnipotence, my good mas- 
ter, I think.” 

“ But ever after that joust, Jacob was a cripple ! ” 

“ Oh, but remember, as he halted on his thigh the 
sun rose over Penuel, ‘the place of seeing God,’ by inter- 
pretation. He was stronger for his laming 1 ” 

“A very ‘ Timor-lame,’ this prince of great chances 
and mean ways.” 

“ Time and trial repaired Jacob’s spotted soul.” 

“ There was much room for the mending, I do vow.” 


A fter EvCy Esther or Mary, 


141 


“His weightings bespeak some charity. Think; a 
weak mother, one designing wife, and plenty of wealth ! ” 

“Well, ’tis true, these were enough to have undone 
St. Anthony, if the devil had only thought to have tried 
them all at once upon him ! ” 

“ Sir Charleroy swings back to his old bitterness to- 
ward women ; did he never love one ? ” 

“No, not as a lover. I was never tried except by 
designing coquetries that nauseated finally.” 

“ Perhaps, like most solitary men, thou so revered 
thyself by habit that there was no room for other per- 
son in thy heart.” 

“ I never met one I deemed perfect and available.” 

“ Better to have loved some one far from perfect 
than none. If thy heart-fount had been once touched 
it would have set thy imaginations to weaving halos 
about the one touching. Thou wouldst have enthroned 
her by a love that would have transformed both. She 
would have become in time what she was in love’s 
young dream ; while thou wouldst have grown by the 
experience to be twice the man thou hadst been — or 
^rt,” 

“The sun in thy head is settling down into thy 
heart, Jew.” 

“ Is that so, Charleroy? ” 

“Yes, but not to harm; heart sunsets ripen heart- 
fruits ; that’s the reason the autumn suns run low ; the 
low suns ripen. But after all. I’m not so very miserable 
in heart. I’ve loved some women; mother and my 
Mary ” 

“Filial love, religious love! somewhat akin and 
blessing him that feels their mellow^ exalting influences ; 


142 The Queen of the House of David, 

but, oh, Sir Charleroy, they do not fill completely the 
heart’s temple. There are places there for the expres- 
sion of ruddy, glorious lover’s love. The three make 
up an all-comprehending trinity, and fill the man as 
Deity the universe. I see religious love in adoration of 
God’s Fatherhood, mother love in the tender leading 
of the Spirit, lover’s love in the priceless self-surren- 
der of our Saviour. That made the angels sing, and in 
the being of each of our race there is room, aye need, 
of the melody which only the experiencing of this pas- 
sion in full can produce. In love-mating is a won- 
drous thrill which can be but faintly voiced even by 
those who have experienced it. 

There are other passions which ebb with time, or, 
being well fed, wax gross; not so with this one. In- 
spired by the potencies of life, which lie at the very 
core of being, it wells up in rills, rivers and torrents of 
pleasurable sensations. Out from the heart it goes to 
the remotest members, only to double on its courses 
and dash again through the beating heart, heat- 
ing its flame by its doubling and hasting, making the 
beatings wilder by its bastings, and then hasting more 
because of the wilder beatings. Of all emotions love 
is the most tireless. It increases by giving, grows 
stronger by action and proclaims the secret of its heav- 
enly birth, its immortality, by the way in which it 
deepens and ripens with every movement of its life. 
Aye, more, it proclaims itself the power of the resur- 
rection by the way it transforms the lives it possesses. 
A man may be a lout, ever so crude in fiber, but this 
musical flame passing through his being, burns up his 
dross, making him all brave, courteous, tender, poetic, 


After Eve^ Esther or Mary. t4j 

religious ! Yea, religious ! If it do not utterly redeem 
a sinner possessed by it, it will take him nearer to sal- 
vation than any other power known on earth, except 
the Spirit of Grace. It is as the opening of the eyes 
of the blind man, for it opens the doors of a new sense 
to the realizing of a world as new as delightful. As 
the thrummings on the harp-strings someway leave 
a lasting sonorousness and tenderness in the sup- 
porting woods about the lyre, so leaves this passion, 
through the beatings of every wave of it, wealth. Its 
devotee by it is inducted into exhaustless new realms 
and possessions, unalterably secured to him, and at 
the same time beyond all computation. He ever gath- 
ers treasures, as a prince from incoming fleets, and is 
made affluent beyond all counting. He surpasses all 
in wealth-getting, and yet is infinitely apart from the 
littleness of avarice. It is to him the advent of char- 
ity’s full-orbed day. It may be fancy in him, but it’s to 
him very real ; the world about, as if having learned his 
secret, seems to be dressing for the wedding feast, 
while all things appear to becoming very confidentially 
to him to whisper the divine mandate, ‘marry and mul- 
tiply.’ He is trusted, yet trusts ; leads, yet follows. He 
is proud to display, a little, his conquest, but does so 
with a sort of alert charming selfishness, which gives 
notice to the world that he alone is to wear the chosen 
one upon his heart. He realizes the paradox of giving 
all and receiving all ; the mystery of two lives merged 
into one by an utter surrender, each to each, which 
leaves both infinitely richer than the sum of all their 
ownings could make either if possessed by the one 
apart from the other. Oh, how almost imperiously each 


i44 Queen of the House of David. 

demands that the other shall surrender all and then 
Ilow great the joy each feels in leading the chosen mate 
to surprises at the munificence and completeness of the; 
giving up of all by the one who just now demanded all; 
I do not know the woman’s heart, but can readily be- 
lieve it far surpasses the man’s in its consecration, en- 
joyment and aspiring. I know the man’s, but my 
words are ragged in description. I know that this 
grand passion makes him wondrously weak and wond- 
rously strong. Sometimes these inner feelings come 
nigh overwhelming him ; sometimes they fall upon his 
life like the musical ebb-waves on resonant shores. I 
can not word it all, nor is it strange, since I am speaking 
of a life of heavenly flights, and best expressed by 
voiceless signs, embraces. In love’s hour the man real- 
izes, as never before, his lordliness and his pride and 
ambition are fed by a growing conviction that all 
the world is small beside himself and his ; proud as a 
conqueror of untold wealth, he yields to the tender 
ties that'urtrelentingly bind him and crucifies his n£tive 
roughness that he may be more like, more worthy her 
he rules and obeys. He is made finer ; she stronger. 
Has she virtues, he appropriates them ; at the same time, 
by the homage implied by his appropriation, makes 
them to shine more brightly on the brow and heart 
of his queen. He touches the fires on the altar she has 
erected within herself to love alone, and the altar-fires 
blaze until her whole being is illuminated as a temple on 
fete days. She puts on his best parts, and then he rev. 
els in delight as he beholds his virtues refined and so 
beautifully framed. There are times wflien, like a mighty 
anthem, his passion passes over and through him. Then 


145 


A fter £vey Esther of Marf, 

Is he nigh to madness, being in the mood to slay him- 
self, or another doing aught to check the rapture of the 
mighty swellings of the music that pours over every 
nerve from head to heart, to limb. Then it is he em- 
braces and kisses and embraces again ; as an inspired 
»artist of music, exhausting himself to prolong this joy, 
almost materialized. Indeed, I saw one who said ‘this 
is tangible music. I feel it ; taste it ; see it! It seems 
to thicken the air until I rise unwinged, and yet in a 
flight that seems to me as free and brilliant as that of 
the golden oriole’s. If the enchanted enchanter be 
pure and true, she leads her captive king, made tender 
^nd yet more manly by his captivity, surely upward from 
tumultous passion’s sway to the ambrosial table-lands of 
higher affection where both may reign tenderly, bravely, 
hopefully, forever. I tell thee, knight, the finest spec- 
tacle on earth is a man in his prime, creation’s lord at 
his best, sincerely, completely in love with a queenly 
woman. Next after getting God into a man’s heart, 
the greatest blessing is the getting of a woman of genu- 
ine parts therein.” 

“ Oh, child of the sunny palm land, thou hast imbibed 
wondrous eloquence. But thou sayest truly. Now, for 
the women that are so to queen us men. No woman 
that I ever knew of could so intoxicate, transform and 
translate me.” 

“ One like Eve, the gift of God ? ” 

“The first woman, like the first man, was pure with- 
out virtue, until tried ; then she fell. I think of her 
chiefly as being a splendid animal, yet, as Adam was 
not left for man’s example, neither was she. I still think 
Eve passed by in history to be only what she was, full 


14 ^ The Queen of the House of David, 

proof that love which rises no higher than to give all 
to and for that which was like the fruit of the tempting 
tree, good for food and pleasant to the eyes, is not like 
the love that at last hung on the tree of Calvary. Oh, 
child of Abraham, I hear the ‘ voice of God walking in 
the garden in the cool of the day'^ saying to a world of 
flitting, false ideals, and those yearning for pilots and 
patterns, ‘ Where art thou f ’ I don’t know, for one, 
exactly where I am, but I’m going forward and upward 
someway.” 

“ Sir Charleroy thou dost dazzle me by thy corre- 
spondences and insights, if I do thee by my pictures. 
We are quits.” 

“ But we’ll not quit. This pilgrim idleness has value. 
I never knew what I believed until, thus flung out of 
life’s hurly burly, I had little company but my thoughts. 
There was method of reason in God’s taking His proph- 
ets to lone places, to fit them for understanding the 
rapturing visions with which He filled them.” 

“ ’Tis so, true; but what thinks the knight of Esther, 
the beautiful Queen ? She’s the idol and ideal in 
Israel in all times and places.” 

“ Wondrous woman ! A girl, petted, ill-trained, from 
poverty suddenly exalted, surrounded by the skilled 
intriguants of court, a jealous, exacting, conceited, 
harem-demoralized old king for a spouse, she was then 
burdened with the salvation of a nation. I’ve so pitied 
her that I’ve forgotten to admire how well she did in 
her trying lot.” 

Can the world ever have a finer figure or present- 
ment of all that is womanly? I do not challenge thy 
Mary, but may I not put the two side by side?” 


A fter Eve^ Esther or Mary, 


147 


“Israel has two great women in their way. The 
one, Esther, exemplifying all sweetness and the mild 
strength of a suddenly developed woman, doing grandly 
in one emergency when great peril and great love 
aroused her from only being an entrancing, petted 
beauty, to be the heroine of an hour. But she was not 
tried by the searching test of a lifetime. She never 
meets the needs of mothers seeking an ideal. Rizpah, 
your other grand woman, was the mother, even the 
mother of sorrows, of the Old Testament. It takes 
these two to make an ideal, and yet the pattern is 
incomplete. God walks yet in the garden where we 
live, with only these two before them, and ever and 
anon they hear the unanswerable, ‘ Where art thou ? * ” 

“ Why, my mentor, master, thou hast touched our 
Scriptures with the rod that budded ; the whole opens 
to me as if for the first time. Methinks, if I were per- 
mitted to lay hands now upon one of our sacred volumes. 
I’d be fairly overcome by the light that would break 
out on me from within it.” 

“ ‘ The entrance of the word giveth light,’ Ichabod.” 
“ I’m moved, master, along lines I can not, turn from, 
to the one woman of all, Mary. She is thy ideal 
queen of hearts? ” 

“ I’m a pilgrim and follow her, seeing none better.” 
“ Then thou wouldst be willing to wed such as Mary ? ” 
“Hold! This is sacrilegious! I’ll not think of 
Mary in any such comparison. Leave my patron saint 
upon her high pedestal. I save her for my soul’s health, 
as every man should save some noble woman, for an 
inner enshrining, to be all that woman may be at her 
best, his beloved, his inspirer, and yet touching no 


148 The Queen of the House of David. 

spring of .his life save such as responds to things of 
moral grandeur.” 

“ Ah, master, I’ve not yet been enamored fully of 
this woman. I feel a stranger to her, but I feel the 
meaning of the finer things thou hast just spoken. I 
have the need of which thou dost speak, and my life, 
like a babe, often now goes out crying^ ^ Mother, 
mother.’ As we lay, yesterday night, beneath the 
quiet firmament, I gazed up and asked a sigh of God 
in prayer. It was a baby cry I know, but I saw one 
star that staid and staid above me. It seemed to be 
warmed with reddish tintings, and I thought that its 
giitterings were proof that it was taking part in some 
anthem of the morning stars. Then I dreamed that 
my mother was in the star all luminous, holy, happy, 
looking down in constant guardianship of her outcast 
boy! Oh, can a child ever be outcast utterly to 
mother ? Can it be that she, who so loved me and so 
loved God, can hate me now, loving her and loving God 
as I do ? God knows my heart ! Will he not tell her 
all ? Her constant mandate to me was, ‘ keep a loyal 
heart, an undefiled conscience.’ I’ve tried’ to do both, 
but then her soul loathed apostacy. Does she loathe 
me for leaving Israel’s fold ? My heart all torn, cries 
to-day, ‘ Mother, mother ! ’ I’m sure she can not hate 
me. To-morrow I hope I shall pray at her grave.” 

Then the vehement Israelite fell on the ground in 
an ecstasy, utterly unconscious of his companion, and, 
kissing the earth as if already he was by that parent’s 
resting place, wildly called, ^‘Mother! my mamma! 
oh. I’m so lonely, so unhappy ! Let me come ! God, 
God, let me go to mother ! Mother, I did it as thou 


A fter Eve, Esther or Mary. 


H9 


saidst. Fm no leper. Fm not a heretic ! I love thee. 
I love God. Fve kept pure. Fve trusted God’s care 
in all my trouble. Mamma, my mamma, let Ichabod 
embrace thee!^' Exhausted and quivering he there lay. 
The knight was silent. It was holy ground, and the 
whole thicket about seemed to be glowing with the fire 
that burns without consuming. 

The travelers were encamped again under the sky, 
and it was now night. . A shooting star sped through 
the constellation of Orion and fell down toward the 
Dead Sea. 

An omen, Jew.” 

“ Explain, brother knight.” 

** Life ; bright, short, ending in gloom.” 

** Look at the fixed stars.” 

“ They preach fate.” 

Perhaps, but they have the majority. Few fall ; I 
think, too. Someone holds them.” 

^‘Thy hopefulness colors thy faith.” 

** Thy murmurings run toward final madness, knight ; 
the Rabbis, good men, so taught me.” 

‘‘If one star falls may not all? If Providence hold 
them, why does one escape ? ” 

“ Thou hast heard that the giant Orion having lost his 
eyes, afterward regained his sight by turning his 
sockets toward the rising sun ; that meteor we saw shot 
through the constellation Orion. Look up.” 

“ A happy simile and pungent thrust, Jew.” 

“ He that sent the lightnings to show us our way 
out of dread Jericho, most likely now commissioned 
some angel to swing a meteor across the sky as a 
torch or beacon for our guidance. The trail of flame 


The Queen of the House of Da'Vid, 

teaches me that God is writing His royal signature oh 
some great message.” 

This world is too vast and too thronged with in- 
significants, such as we, for such especial carings on 
God’s part. There are too many kings, too many 
shepherds, too many follies for Him to constantly 
watch any one or two/' 

“ Backward, forward ; now good, now bad. What a 
charging, changing knight ! Pray God to get thee 
right and then fix thee.” 

Their converse was interrupted by a prolonged 
trumpet blast, echoing from hill to hill. Sir Charle- 
roy sprang to his feet and clasping his sword hilt, cried 
eagerly, “ We’re ambuscaded ! ” 

“No, by the glory of God, ’twas the temple call! 
How grand it sounds away in this wilderness 1 ” 

“ No, no, Jew, I’ve heard that call ; this one had six 
responses.” 

“ Twas echo’s magic ! Didst thou not notice how 
the sound spread as it traveled in a sort of sheet 
of melody ? Then it rose and fell from low hill 
to high. One blast ; seven responses. Nature pro- 
claiming against fate and chance ; the covenant num- 
ber.” 

“ Tm not so confident that it’s a miracle ; what if it 
were some Mamelukes or Druses, planning one of 
their pious immolations of heretics with us for the 
victims ? ” 

“ Nay, brother. It’s ^ Purim ' ; that feast is now due, 
and always begins at early starlight. I know it. 
Come, I’ll put it to the proof.” 

“ Hold ; poets are more rash than knights in a 


A fter Eve^ Esther or Mary, 1 5 1 

charge, but not so skillful in retreat ! Whither wouldst 
thou?” 

“ ril spy out the trumpeters and report.” 

Not alone. Fll go, too. This camp will care for 
itself if they beyond be friends ; if enemies, why then, 
without consulting us, they will care for all we have. 
But this,” said the knight, toying with his sword, 
‘‘ was blessed by a priest to preach to infidels.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE FEAST OF PURIM. 

TEALTHILY Ichabod, followed by Sir 
Charleroy, approached the place from 
which the trumpet call had sounded. The 
foliage was dense, the necessary way some- 
what winding, and these circumstances, together with 
the fact that it was expedient to move with great 
caution, made the progress of the explorers very slow. 
The last ray of day had faded, sung away by the even- 
ing bird and insect chorusers, whose concert strains, 
like the vanishing notes of aeolian ^harps swept by 
dying breezes, were now blending, without a line to 
mark the place of transition, into the lull of the night. 
Nature’s lullaby to tired, drowsy life. It was a witch- 
ing hour in the woods, and the scene that lay just 
beyond the pilgrims in an opening by Jabbock was an 
enchantment. The river, reflecting the moon rays and 
the lights of torches borne by many intermingling 
feasters, flowed silently along like a stream of mingled 
silver and fire, while tree and shrub along its sides, as 
green as green could be, bore as fruits lights of many 
colors. In the opening, surrounded by beacons, ban- 
ners and the lamp-bearing trees, the beauty as well as 
the center of all was a magnificent patriarchal' tent, 
made of costly materials. About the pavilion were 
mounds of earth, elevated upon high tripods, seven 




The Feast of Purim, 


153 


in all, in symbols of the seven temple candle-sticks. 
On each mound there blazed a fire fed by resinous fag- 
gots, and the lights of the fires falling upon the folds 
of the tent, caught up here and there by bands of blue 
and gold, made the whole glisten like jeweled silk. 

“ Hallelujah,” with suppressed joy, exclaimed Icha- 
bod, “ the tabernacle of God with men ! ” 

Hush, rash man, and watch !” rebukingly replied 
Sir Charleroy. 

‘‘Watch? Why, my soul is in my eyes. I’m as 
one famished for years smelling a feast! ” 

As they looked on the beautiful scene, they per- 
ceived that the front of the pavilion was lifted up and 
stretched forward as a canopy over an altar, richly 
decorated with twined olive branches and blood-red 
blossoms. A little way off, and yet partly encircling 
the altar, were little walnut trees, each tree having on 
its branches glistening lamps, half hidden by wreaths of 
hollyhocks and asters. 

The moon sank behind the hills ; the night dark- 
ened, but the fires and lamps burned still more 
brightly. 

“ It’s like fairy-land, Jew,” after little, spake Sir 
Charleroy. 

More beautiful, knight. Wait and see.” 

There was a burst of music, instantly followed by 
the entrance of youths and old men ; some singing, 
others vigorously playing ugabs, reed-flutes, and tam- 
bourines. Somewhere near, though unseen by the 
watchers, were happy women ; they recognized their 
voices in refrains, choruses, and merry peals of laughter. 

“Well, this is not warlike, but what is it, Jew?” 
queried Sir Charleroy. 


154 'The Queen of the House of David. 

Wait a little.” 

There came a commanding trumpet blast. Its tones 
died away in the melody-waves of a score of viols, 
managed by unperceived musicians. Then silence ; 
presently the huge blue curtain that hung across the 
tent, just back of the outstretching front canopy, parted, 
and there emerged an aged man of stately form, wear- 
ing an Aaronic mitre and priestly robes; rich as well as 
ample. He paused before the altar a moment, as if in 
prayer, and then suddenly the air far and wide 
quivered with a sound like a cyclone hail. There were 
also cornet blasts mingling therewith. 

“ Heavens, Jew, explain ! ” 

Selah ! These the drums and waking clappers ; the 
signal to be given. Now for ‘ Purim ’ in earnest.” 

The groves about seemed to be alive and moving, 
for from every direction toward the center gathered 
men and boys, bearing palm branches and torches ; 
these, as they advanced, moved with speeded pace ; 
presently they were in a perfect maze, the music of 
every kind growing louder and louder, then seeming to 
die away. 

‘‘They’re carrying the edicts of Ahasuerus to the 
Jews to defend themselves, master.” 

“ A fine play, Jew ! ” 

Now the blue curtain parted again, and from the 
pavilion emerged another stately form, in all except that 
he lacked priestly robing, the very counterpart of the 
aged man first at the altar. 

“ Glory to Shaddah ! again I see the holy brothers, 
Harrimai,” cried Ichabod. 

The second patriarch motioned silence ; all in the 
assembly bent their heads in breathless attention and 


The Feast of Pur im. 


155 


the patriarch spoke : “ Brethren of Israel, hearken and 
give God all the gloiy who this hour permits us, His 
chosen people, to celebrate in peace, with joy, our 
glad Purim feast. This day, Jehovah granted me the 
most wholesome comfort of hearing from a pashaw of 
our scourge that the last of the armies of the Moslem, 
beaten by want and internal discord, were melting out 
of our land like fog banks before the rising sun. He 
certified to me for a handful of barley (for which he 
had come to stand in need) that those hated cross- 
bearing invaders, the knights, were gone, never to re- 
turn. So God has worked in our behalf as in the days 
of Esther, setting our enemies to destroying one another 
and then compassing the slinging out of His holy 
places, the abominable remnants. So may His thun- 
ders, as of old, forever beat on the heads of all who lift 
themselves against our Israel ! ” 

There was a murmur of applause ; first like the buzz 
of the noonday insects of the groves, then like a ca- 
reering hurricane. The applause swelled up, drowning 
all sounds, causing the fires to flicker and flame, mak- 
ing the pavilion’s sides sway and wave as if all were 
feeling the joy present. The musical instruments 
quickly now caught up the strain of the cheery voices, 
and all was in a perfect whirl of excitement with one 
thought, ‘ praise.’ It was free and fluent, because it 
came from hearts practiced in the ultimate swings 
from joy to sorrow and then from sorrow to joy. For 
half an hour nearly, the rhapsody continued, nor did it 
temperate until sheer exhaustion fell on the revelers. 

Presently, after an interval of comparative quiet, 
there came a flourish of cornets and a roar of the rat- 
tling clappers. It was a signal followed by the uplift- 


156 The Queen of the House of David. 

ing of the old priest’s hands as if in benediction. All 
heads were bowed ; some of the congregation knelt, 
and then he spoke in sonorous, yet soothing voice, 
words of benediction : “ Blessed art thou, Oh Lord 
our God, King of the Universe, who hath wrought all 
miracles for our fathers and also for us, at this time.” 

Then the people stood up, and the second patriarch, 
advancing to the front of the altar, began reading from 
the holy Kethuhim of the Jews, the story of the Purim. 
At each mention of Esther’s name the congregation 
murmured “ how beautiful is goodness; ” at each men- 
tion of Haman’s name all in the congregation stamped 
their feet, also making gurgling noises with their 
throats, to imitate the false prince’s strangling ; the 
whole being made more hideous by the shriek of dis- 
cordant cornet notes and the springing of rattles. 

The foregoing scene suddenly changed ; a procession 
of maidens, in graceful evolutions, emerging from the 
surrounding groves, presenting a living picture, really 
entrancing. They were all richly robed in garments 
of graceful flow, caught round their waists by flowered 
girdles. Some wore sashes of jassamine, while others 
were crowned with lillies or asters or violets. Their 
arms and ankles were clad only with circlets from 
which pendant bells gave forth music at every motion. 
Seven of the foremost maidens bore lamps ; behind 
each of these followed one with a harp ; behind 
each harper two with tambourines and cymbals. 
Seven times this maiden train, with a step in time, 
half march, half dance, waltzed around the canopied 
altar. Then were given seven cornet blasts, the pro- 
cession leaders waving their lamps with each blast, 
after which there was perfect silence. Now the old 


The Feast of Pur im» 


157 


priest moved forward a little toward the procession.; 
the congregation meanwhile gathering in a semi-circle, 
just outside of all, and he addressed the assembly: 

Brethren and children, I wou^d speak to you a little 
of the ‘ Virtuous Woman.’ Daughters of Israel, hearts 
of homes to be, hopes of the nation looking for a De- 
liverer and deliverers yet to be born ; hear me ! Israel 
knows no queen of all womanly perfections like unto 
Esther, the beautiful. Evermore take her for your 
meditation by day and your dreams by night. Then 
shall you all realize to yourselves, your fathers, broth- 
ers, husbands, all that the holy Proverbs of our Kethu- 
biin declares of the true woman. Then the priest tak- 
ing the parchment, solemnly and in mellow tones, read 
the last chapter of the book, ‘ the birth-day chapter,’ a 
verse prophetic for every day of the longest month, as 
the Jews believe.” 

When the reader ceased, the encampment was dim, 
many of the lights having been quenched. Then the 
congregation joined in chanting a soft-aired Jewish 
hymn. 

The devotions are ended ; now for the sports;” so 
spoke Ichabod ; the first words spoken between him and 
the knight during their observation of the last part of 
the proceedings before the pavilion. He had scarcely 
made the announcement when the second patriarch ap- 
peared, dressed in somber black, leading by the hand 
a maiden of wondrous beauty, wearing also black, in 
heavy trails ; on her head a golden crown. As they 
appeared the applause as at first burst forth, but now 
blended with distinguishable cries of “ Hail Esther!” 

Hail Mordecai !” 

It's the play, knight. Watch that pair.” 


158 The Queen of the House of David. 

‘*No fear, Jew, such a wondrous beauty ! Had I 
been Haman and she Esther, I never could have 
crossed her. Heavens, Jew, it is well said the people 
of promise produce the most beautiful women of earth. 
That’s why Deity elected one of them, through whom 
to be incarnate, I think.” 

“ I think I heard the knight say, awhile ago, that the 
revolution of all religions was to come when men’s ad- 
miration for women rose far above rapture over out- 
ward form. Is it not so?” 

‘^Ah, it’s thy remembering and my forgetting that 
keeps us crossing each other ! But no matter ; am I 
looking at an angel or not ? ” 

That’s the priest’s only daughter ; his idol, ay, 
the idol of every youth in all these parts of Israel. 
No nation can be dead while it produces such flowers.” 

Suddenly the camp blazed with re-illurnination, and 
then began a carnival. Games and dancers were 
everywhere. Some, evidently men, were dressed as 
women, and others, evidently women, were garbed as 
men. For one season, Purim, the command against 
the interchange of garments between the sexes, was 
suspended. Each reveler carried a little box. If he 
asked a favor or a question, the reply was a challenge 
to try lots. Partners were so chosen, tasks given and 
predictions made. Laughter was everywhere, and 
wine was flowing. 

“Ichabod, I haven’t tasted wine since Acre! Why 
dost thou not introduce me yonder?” 

“ Wait ; they will all be mellow, soon. They may 
be, too, for it’s a law that a Jew is not deemed drunk 
at ‘ Purim ’ so long as he can discern between a bless- 
ing for Mordacai and a curse for Haman.” 


The Feast of Pur im. 


159 


Heavens ! how they do imbibe." 

It’s natural for doves to twitter after a thunder 
storm. They remember the past troubles." 

Ay ; but I fear they will consume all the bever- 
age before we are with them. We have had plenty of 
trouble ; now take me in to twitter with those doves." 

Ichabod started, as if to lead the way, and then drew 
back and moaned, “ no, no ; it cannot be. I’m forever 
anathema here, to them ! I could bear their hate, not 
their contempt. They may call me renegade, but 
never spaniel nor hypocrite ! If I appeared among them 
they would soon know, if they do not already, that 
Ichabod is changed. Then they’d sneer and tell me 
that I tried to play double, or thinking my people’s 
faith not good enough for me, I yet hungered for their 
feasts. No, no; it must not be! To-morrow, I hope 
to pray at my mother’s grave. I’d choke then if I had 
to remember I’d done aught that she, living, would have 
thought mean." 

‘^Now, I’ll not persuade thee, Jew, but go alone." 

“ That’s reckless I thou mayst regret it. They may 
become riotous, being half drunk, and beat thee as a 
Haman. No, stay away." 

“ No dissuasion, Jew, but just change garments. It’s 
the fashion to-night." The Jew complied, remarking 
as he did : 

*‘Will the knight wear this leather thong?" 

Heavens ! no, nor the brand on thy neck." 

Christian knights commanded me to wear one, and 
burned into my flesh the other years ago ; they deemed 
it necessary to mark all Jews for hatred." 

Dear Ichabod, I never counseled branding any 
man ! " 


i6o The Queen of the House of David, 

** I believe it. I have forgotten all bitterness about 
these marks and have borne them as my cross. 

But, Sir Charleroy, don’t wear thy cross in their 
sight!’* 

** For once, I’ll cover it.” So saying he hid the 
emblem. 

The comrades parted, and Sir Charleroy quickly 
found himself by the maiden who personated Esther. 
He approached unnoticed until he pleasantly said: 
“ Queen of Shushan, a man out there behind a clump 
of Sharon roses, played me a game of lots. I lost the 
game, and he has put it on me to come to the Queen 
to fix the forfeit I shall pay.” The maiden turned her 
head haughtily and examined the speaker from head to 
foot with repelling gaze. It was her way of freezing 
off the amorous swains who constantly aimed to pay 
her court. But when her eyes met those of the self- 
possessed stranger, she gave a little start. Perhaps 
she caught sight, by some omen, of her fate ; perhaps 
she felt the magnetism of the strong will which for the 
first time presented itself. In any event, it was the first 
time she had ever been alone, face to face, with such 
as he ; a stalwart man, all reverential, yet all self- 
possessed. They were well matched, and they both 
felt it, intuitively, instantly. 

“ Who art thou ?” 

“A child of God.” 

“Of Israel.?” 

“ By faith, most holy of Abraham’s seed,” responded 
Sir Charleroy. 

“Thy speech bewrayeth thee as lacking our shib- 
boleth.” 

“ I’ve been a life long wanderer. Thou wouldst not re- 


The Feast of Purim. 1 6 1 

ject one whom involuntary exile had robbed of 
tokens ?” 

“ But I can not be free with an uncertified stranger. 
I’m afraid I err in tarrying here ’till now.” 

“ Hospitality is the boast of pious Hebrews who 
obey Him that ‘ loveth the stranger in giving him food 
and raiment.’ Thou hast the Great Father’s law : 

‘ Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers 
in the land of Egypt.’ Some have by hospitality una- 
wares entertained angels, thou knowst.” 

I’d like to entertain an angel ; are they ever so 
human-like as thou ? ” she smiled. 

Had I known the Esther of to-night long enough 
to convince her that my freedom was sincere. I’d say 
that she was a fine example of the union of the angelic 
in the human.” 

The maiden laughed. The insense was agreeable, 
and the freedom of this feast-time justified her accept- 
ance of this novel, bold flattery. Your proud, daring 
woman is very vulnerable to such assaults. The world 
often wonders why such women so often, after all, sur- 
render ; but that’s because the world does not appre- 
ciate the dexterity in such jousts of such skilled men 
of the world as Sir Charleroy ; or how grateful to 
self-admiring beauties the admiration of superior intel- 
lects is. 

** Well, will thou give me /thy name ? ” 

Certainly. For to-night, Ahasuerus ? ” 

A presumptions jest, sir.” 

“No, for I admire and respect Esther, that’s here.” 

“ And then ? ” 

“ I plead for help ; gain me admittance to the festivi- 
ties, and escape from inquiry further, as to my identity.” 


1 62 The Queen of the House of David. 

‘‘And afterward, be called by my people brazen; 
by thee, a little fool ! ” 

“ Art thou driven from right, the claim of hospitality, 
by fear of a lie ? ” 

“ What if thou wert a Bedouin spy, or a hated cross 
follower? ” 

“Thou art a noble hearted maiden/’ 

“Ah, who told thee so?” 

“ Thy face.” 

“ What is that to thee, if true?” she blushed a little. 

“ Could’st thou drive from thy bosom a fleeing kid^ 
there seeking refuge from pursuing lions?” 

“ I do not know ’till tried. Thou art at any rate no 
kid ; there is no lion. If thou desirest refuge, see the 
path of departure is the one by which thou cam’st 
hither.” 

“Well, then, farewell.” 

The knight made as if he would go, but he knew he 
would not. The motion gave him excuse for looking 
sad, and he knew that next to a handsome face a sad 
one most easily conquers a woman. 

“Tarry a moment ’till I think. Can I trust thee?” 
she was hesitating. 

“ I’ve trusted thee, and that’s ever the best proof of 
fidelity.” Women like to think they are especially 
trusted. 

“Well but, see, my father comes; there’s no 

time for argument ; let me speak ! ” 

As the aged priest drew near, Esther saluted him, 
and said, “ Father, let me take this Galileean stranger 
to the youths and their games ? He claims our hospi- 
tality.” 

The priest, wont to be on the alert, was disarmed by 


The Feast of Purim. 


163 


the magic word hospitality; then, too, for a long time 
before, having been wifeless, he had been wont to put 
his daughter forward, according large confidence to 
her; hence his reply: 

If thou knowest him, Rizpah." 

I doP 

“ Welcome, brother, what is thy name? ” said Harri- 
mai. 

Rizpah, his daughter, quickly made reply, Ahasue- 
rus, and Tve laughed at the coincidence until he has 
been ashamed to repeat it." 

‘‘ 'Tis strange, surely, and not like a Jewish one. I 
must examine the family rolls to-morrow. Peace be 
unto thee, son," and the old man turned toward his 
pavilion. Esther plucked a lily from her crown and 
handed it to Sir Charleroy saying: “Here, king, a 
token." 

“ Of what? " 

“ Shushan ; in our tongue, the name of the flower 
signifies * surrender.' " 

. “ They say, Esther, that Judith wore a crown of lil- 
ies when she assassinated Holophernes. Is there any 
danger to me impending? " 

“ Thou hast a lily. It is said to ward off enchant- 
ments, too." 

“ I am enchanted. I do not want to awaken. In 
Egypt they call this the lotus, flower of unrestrained 
pleasure." 

“ For now then, we’ll call it lotus." 

“ All gods, even Osiris, bless thee, Esther." 

So the twain were charmed comrades, till watch fires 
were dim and the palm shadows were creeping in, like 
funeral attendants, to carry away the spirit of the 


164 The Queen of the House of David, 

dying revel. Here and there was heard anon the voices 
commending this one and that to pleasant slumbers. 
The stars were withdrawing behind dawn’s feathery 
curtains, and over all, at intervals, was heard the voice 
of the chanticleer, triumphantly proclaiming the com- 
ing day. 

Charleroy and Rizpah were left alone with each 
other at the end of the last game. 

The maiden gave a coy, furtive glance and tardily 
drew away from the knight. The language of the 
drawing-room of the day, is as old as the centuries, and 
that maid of the wilderness used it as finely as a queen, 
to say without words, it’s time we part ; please say so 
first, nor leave to me, the hostess, the first suggestion 
of a wish to have thee go ” 

Still the knight spake not. 

He was delighted and averse to breaking the first 
pleasure spell of years. 

The Jewish maiden, with fine courtesy, renewed the 
subject: “ King, methinks, thou art anxious to exchange 
the grove for the palace.” 

“ I can never think of weariness when restful Esther 
is nigh.” 

“ But thy life is precious to thy subjects ; care for it, 
and go with freshness to to-morrow’s cares of state. 

“ Ah, queen, I too keenly realize that with thy de- 
parture my kingdom fades to nothingness.” 

A truce, my liege.” 

“ Granted, and any thing else, to the half of my king- 
dom.” 

Rizpah startled the birds in the shrubbery to prema- 
ture morning song, with a merry laugh. It was a fin- 
ishing charge, that laugh, by which she carried her 


The Feast of Pur im, 165 

point, for the knight quickly questioned “Why 
this?" 

“ I was only thinking how odd thou wouldst appear if 
thou didst wear away my pepelum. Thy subjects would 
think their king mad, if he met them veiled as a 
woman." 

“ Pardon, queen, Tve been so absorbed, I forgot my- 
self — " So saying, he gracefully transferred from his 
shoulder to hers the shawl she had permitted him for 
the night to wear. As the maiden adjusted it, 
something fell out of its folds, glittering to her feet. 

“ Findings keepings ; " she laughed, and stooped to 
pick up the object. As she arose she turned it slowly 
toward the setting moon the better to inspect the 
find. 

The knight was alarmed, but it was too late to pre- 
vent her examinination now of his Teutonic cross and 
chain. 

At a glance, Rizpah saw it was an emblem, of all 
others, hated by her people, and with a low, startled cry 
she made a motion as if to hurl it from her, but she 
checked herself with a powerful effort ; suddenly turning 
her black, piercing eyes upon her companion she took 
a step back. She stood there the embodiment of an 
imperative questio'n. 

The knight quietly said : “ Be calm, dear maid." 

Over her countenance passed a cloud which to the 
man all too plainly said: “ How darst thou use such 
terms to me ? " and then the face hardened again to im- 
perative interrogation. 

“Thou trustedst me four hours ago, under the lotus, 
fry now my sincerity by any sterner test." 

Turning her eyes full on his, with a voice without a 


1 66 The Queen of the House of David. 

quaver, but in deep, measured tones indicative of sup- 
pressed emotion, she questioned as she held out to- 
ward him his emblem, “What’s this?” 

“ Concealment from thee, having trusted me as thou 
hast, would be futile not only, but hateful ; thou knowst 
the meaning of the sign.” 

“ Who art thou then ? ” 

“ A Christian knight ! ” 

“ An enemy of my people everywhere ; a spy here ! ” 
she exclaimed. 

“No, never a spy! a true Christian knight never was 
such ! Our warfare is open and equal. I’m degraded 
by the defense from such an odious charge ! ” 

“ Why debate thy methods ; ’tis enough for me to 
know thou art a foe to me and mine.” 

“ No enemy of thine, but rather the friend of all hu- 
manity, woman.” 

“ Bloody friends I’ve heard ! ” 

“No! Each one of my order is sworn, by awful 
vow, to protect the traveler, the poor, the weak and 
woman with our last drop of blood ! If we two were 
all alone here and one of our lives must be forfeited to 
save the other’s, mine would joy to go first.” 

“ Words are cheap, and thou can'st use them finely, 
knight.” 

“ Thou knowst, maiden, to what that cross alludes.” 

“ The Nazarene Imposter I ” 

“ His followers revere Him ? ” 

“ Like madmen, they follow their phantom ! ” 

“ Didst ever hear of one wearing that sign, being 
untrue to it?” 

“ No, it’s their dread black-art.” 

“ Wouldst thou trust me if I swore by it ? ” 


The Feast of Pur ini. 


167 


I might ; but Fd fear that devils would flock out of 
the airy deep to witness thy vowing. Spare me that 
horror 1 ” 

Maiden, thou’lt craze me by thy distrust and wild 
words. In God’s name tell me what to do ! ” 

Swear, but wave back the evil spirits, if thou art 
wont to have them.” 

‘^That sign is their lasting terror; but the silent 
palms and the stars alone shall witness, ay, the God 
of all, as well. Here, make thou the words as thou 
wilt. Now, I kiss the cross I love, and am ready. He 
suited the action to the words. The maid'en drew 
ftcar to him, looking down into his eyes searchingly 
and seemed assured by their serene frankness.” 

“ Go on, Rizpah, I’ll bind my soul with any words 
coined, and, remember that I believe that perjury would 
consign me to misery untold here ; eternal woe here- 
after ! ” 

‘‘ I’ll trust thy solemn asseverations; they say that a 
superstition on the right side will make even a Philis- 
tine bearable. Repeat, ‘ I swear never to harm any 
of Rizpah’s kin or clan, except in self-defense.” 

He complied. 

Again,” * I swear to depart peacefully at once, and 
no more seek companionship with the people this 
night met.” 

He complied,. but murmured “cruelty.” 

“And how?” she questioned. 

“ Wilt add a little ? ” 

“ Add what ? ” 

“Add this ‘ except by permission of the one ordain- 
ing my vow. 

“ It is so fixed.”j 


l6B The Queen of the House of David, 

then swear it all.” 

Well, now go,” and she pointed to the hills. 

“ I obey, but yet plead delay.” 

She hesitated and fell from being master to being 
mastered. 

“ Why, what benefits delay ? ” 

Oh, woman, I yearn as only a lonely heart can, to 
enjoy a little while the fellowship and hospitality of 
thy people ! For years homeless ; for months friendless, 
Fve come to feel worthless. This is the first bright 
hour in my life for many a day. Perhaps, maiden of 
Israel, thou mightst make life worth living to me.” 

It was a charge on her sympathy, and he knew it 
would succeed. 

A Crusader, ‘ one of the armies of God,' boasting a 
divine call to conquer and convert the world, so talk- 
ing?” 

“ Our armed crusades are ended forever ; my occu- 
pation’s gone.” 

She had hesitated, now she pitied the man, and 
woman-like, again surrendered while she protested. 

I do not think there could come great harm from 
thy staying until sunrise repast.” 

“ Bless thee, the nine sun gods bless thee, Esther.” 

Heathen ! ” 

“ Well ; an Egyptian-Christian-Jew taught me to say 
this when too cheerful to be solemn, and pious enough 
not to be frivolous.” 

‘‘An Egyptian-Hebrew-Christian ! He must have 
been an Arab. That name means the ‘ mixed.’ But 
go to the men’s tents ; to-morrow I’ll have more wis- 
dom. Peace and grace to thee; good night, Christian- 
Heathen-Hebrew-Arabic-Egyptian ! ” She laughingly 


The Peast of Pur ifH. i6g 

Spoke and the unbending made the knight, bold. He 
addressed her : 

I’d sleep in perfect peace, if Rizpah would give 
me a token.” 

‘‘ I ? what ? ” and the maiden drew back, offended. 
Her innocency remembered no token then, but such 
solicited by her maiden friends, or given at times to 
her father, a kiss. 

Place thy hand in mine, Rizpah.’' She quickly 
complied, glad she was mistaken, as to her suspicion 
and blushing within, as she thought how strangely, 
easily, her mind had had the thought, “ Well, now what, 
knight?” 

Promise me that while I'm permitted to tarry among 
thy people, I shall have thy heart’s friendship ; as 
freely, as loyally bestowed as if I were thy brother.” 

“ Canst trust me, a woman, a girl, almost a stran- 
ger?” 

‘‘ I trust thy woman's heart as Joshua's men of old 
trusted Rahab, a wreck, but still a woman. Thou art 
infinitely more noble than she.” 

“ But men think us weak, fitful, garrulous.” 

‘‘ Responsibility makes the weakest of thy sex hero- 
ines and pity is the gateway to their hearts. Thou 
hast my life and my happiness as thy responsibility ; 
dost pity me ? ” 

Yes : go now. A Gentile hater of my people shall 
see of what metals Jewish maidens are.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


ASTARTE OR MARY? 

“ Who could resist ; who in the universe ? 

She did breathe ambrosia ; so immerse 
My existence in a golden clime, 

She took me like a child of sucking time, 

And cradled me in roses. Thus condemned 
The current of my former life was stemmed : 

I bowed a tranced vassal.” 

— Keats. 

HE Teutonic Knight of Saint Mary, through 
all his changing fortunes from the time of 
his knighthood’s vow, preserved his moral 
integrity, his loyalty to the lofty pattern 
of life set forth by the Queenly exemplar, Mary, the 
mother of Jesus. Crusader days had so far improved 
his life as to make him the outspoken denouncer of all 
impurity of life. He thought his creed and his commit- 
tal thereto complete. A change came over him. He that, 
in the storm of battle, had often cried as his law and his 
delight Dens Vnlt^' “God wills,” now feared to seek 
to know, much less to do, that will. The intoxications 
of a new love were upon him ; unconsciously he was 
suffering his queen to be veiled, eclipsed ; and he yielded 
to the tide that swept him toward the Jewish maiden. 
Sometimes his conscience smote him, but he parleyed 
with it, called it a fool, or placated it by the assurance 
that this whole matter could be stopped any time at 




A starte or Mary ? 1 7 1 

ivlll. Like many another man, forgetting all else ex- 
cept that he was a refined animal, he passed away from 
the beacons of Bethlehem to the chambers of Im- 
agery, the gods of Egypt. In chains of roses, though 
with many fine Christian sentiments on his lips, he 
went heart first, head first, into an utter committal of 
all his being to the possession of his enchanter. He 
expected to regard the laws of the land and society, 
but nothing more. He was led by his tempting 
spirit to Ramoth Gilead, now sometimes called 
Gerara or Gerash. There it was that Rizpah's family 
took up its abode. With them, and of them, was Sir 
Charleroy, a welcome guest, his welcome secured by 
his own personal efforts to please, in part ; but more 
through \\\^'finesse of Rizpah, who having promised to 
be a sister, was permitting her mind to wonder what 
he might become if only her friend were a Hebrew. 
Such day dreams were sinless, but impolitic if she 
really meant to keep herself free and painless, when the 
parting time came. But it so happens that the “"ues- 
tions and problems of the heart are thrust ever on life 
when most responsive, least experienced. The won- 
der is not that so many decide them ill, but that 
youth so pressed, so ardent, so callow, as a whole 
decide so fairly well the master social problem. The 
life of Harrimai and his following was very Jewish at 
Gerash. There was an unusual amount of national 
pride evinced in that locality for the times. Sir Char- 
leroy was interested deeply in the place because of its 
splendid ruins, he said, but as need not be explained, 
chiefly on account of its natural beauties amid which 
Rizpah was peerless. The Israelitish colony revered 
the place for its ancient part in Jewish history, and be- 


1/2 The Queen of the House of David. 

cause they believed no Moslem invader had ever defiled 
the place. The knight and the Jewish father and 
daughter were in frequent companionship. They were 
becoming very intimate, meanwhile gaining power each 
to make the other eventually very miserable. 

Rizpah was pushing out in a new experience to hen 
If she were enamored she did not fully know it. She 
only knew that the knight’s companionship was very 
delightful. If she had any misgivings as to the pro- 
priety of her course she silenced them by saying to 
herself : Sir Charleroy has sworn to leave us forever 
when I say he shall. I can end this matter anytime.’* 
She thought she could, but the shield of her safety was 
already too heavy for her. She could not have said 
go, had she tried. Time deepened the perplexity by 
multiplying the enmeshings of the trio. The knight 
and Rizpah were much in each other’s society. They 
spoke of this as being a happy circumstance, as youths 
usually do. “ We shall understand each other so well — 
too well to misunderstand.” Some of the Jewish 
young men were jealous and made some very natural 
remarks, under the circumstances, though the remarks 
were rather bitter with jealousy. • The older people, 
some of them, anxious for an alliance by marriage with 
the rich and powerful Harrimai family, took up the 
undertone complaints of the young people of their race. 
Of course, the murmurings were cloaked with declara- 
tions that they were all for the sake of righteousness ! 
Harrimai, in heart far from assured, was yet compelled 
to defend the two secretly loving, in order to defend his 
daughter’s fair fame. The two young people wore the 
armor of teacher and pupil ; the young woman con- 
stantly bepraising the knight’s wondrous knowledge 


Astarte or Mary f 

of the antiquities, etc., of all the out-of-the-way places 
they visited. So the meshes multiplied, though 
the caviling was in part silenced. As teacher and 
pupil they went on, and Harrimai knew, as did Sir 
Gharleroy, that the relationship had its peril, as it ex- 
isted between a man and woman who could love yet 
ought not to love. Rizpah did not at first know how 
easily a woman’s heart surrenders to a man to whom 
she is accustomed to look upward. In fact she drifted 
in a delight iii all pertaining to the knight ; her only 
outlook and watchfulness being toward her father, 
'fhe way the latter at times keenly, silently observed 
her and the knight made her uneasy. She knew in- 
tuitively that not far away there was impending on her 
father’s part an investigation. She determined to delay, 
if not prevent it. One day she bounded into her 
father’s presence, aglow with enthusiasm over the won- 
ders unfolded to her by Sir Gharleroy during a visit to 
the ruins of Gerash’s temple of the sun. The old man 
was charmed by her description, and when she declared 
her intention to pursue her investigations beyond their 
city he hesitated to forbid. 

“ And now, father. I’m going to that old city of the 
Giants, Bozrah.” 

The father, with an effort at firmness, dissuadingly 
replied : 

“We may all go there, but not now. It is better 
to bide here quietly, until we learn that the perils 
of receding war have left assured peace.” 

“Why, father. I’m not afraid ! ” 

“ I know it ; so much the more need for me to be ; 
these over-daring daughters need over-careful guard- 
ians. Some of us aged ones are suffered to tarry long 


l74 Queen of the House of David, 

from paradise, in order that we may see our darlings 
in the right path thither.” 

Give me my swift white dromedary and two at- 
tendants and ril defy the miserables who ambuscade 
along the way.” 

Just then, there dashed toward them, over the olean- 
der-fringed road which passed due north along the 
little river and across the city, a rider on panting 
steed. 

“ It’s the news runner ! ” said the patriarch. 

“ Shall we signal him? ” she questioned. 

“ No, daughter, we will meet him yonder, where the • 
two great streets cross. He will await me.’* 

When the father and daughter arrived, a crowd had 
already gathered about the horseman. Some pressed 
him for news, but he looked straight ahead at his 
horse, now slaking its thirst, and merely snapped out, 

“ News? My beast is thirsty! ” 

When Harrimai drew near the rider saluted him and 
at once unfolded his budget: “ Father, I’m this day 
from Bozrah. Its ruins are not ruined. All around 
there, and from there to here, the herds sleep in the 
shade, and the carrion birds that have so long been 
hovering around us for human food have fled back 
to Egypt and Europe and Hades! ” 

‘‘ Praised be the Father of Israel ! I shall live then, 
as I prayed I might, to see the infidels slung out of 
our holy places 1 ” So spoke the priest, and as he affec- 
tionately embraced some aged Israelites who gathered 
about him, the horseman responded : 

“ God reigns and Israel has peace.” He put spurs to 
his horse then, and dashed away across the river to 
spread to other hamlets the glorious news. 


A St arte or Mary? 


175 


Next morning Rizpah, having carried her point, was 
ready to depart for Bozrah. She had taken silence 
on her father’s part for consent, and pursued her prepa- 
rations as if it were so ordered. All things being ready 
she silenced protest by a good-by kiss. 

“ But daughter ! What escort ? ” 

Ah,” she thought, victory ! I can go if well at- 
tended.” She continued aloud ; “ Perhaps Sir Charle- 
roy’s Egyptian might attend me, since our servants are 
busy in the groves.” The maiden called to her Icha- 
bod, who had found a home in Harrimai’s establish- 
ment, his identity hidden under the assumed name 
Huykos, a name from the Nile land, meaning “Shep- 
herd King.” “ I’ll take it,” said Ichabod, one day to 
Sir Charleroy, “ that all unknown I may follow my 
pilgrim comrade and perhaps honor my new found 
^ Shepherd King.’ ” 

“One will be a meager escort daughter,” interposed 
Harrimai. 

“ Oh, fear for me nothing, father. I’ll quickly be at 
Bozrah, where there are Israelites not a few who will be 
proud to aid thy daughter.” 

“ No, daughter it must not be. I’ll call the young 
men from the vineyard, if thou must go.” 

“ Another victory,” her heart whispered ; then 
quickly turning to Sir Charleroy she exclaimed, “My 
father must not call the workmen from their tasks ; 
what sayst thou ? Wilt serve us both by joining my 
body-guard, Ahasuerus ? Come, to please my father ? ” 

The knight had hoped for and expected the sum- 
mons, so needed no urgency and was instantly preparing 
for the start. 

Harrimai was not pleased by the arrangement, an4 


iy6 The Queen of the House of David, 

yet he was forced to thank the knight for consenting. 
His native courtliness compelled this much, and Riz- 
pah’s genius had precluded all gainsaying on his part. 
And so they rode away, Rizpah in a delight, which she 
could not clearly define ; Sir Charleroy blinded already 
by the cry that at last led to giant Samson’s blinding, 
namely: “Get her for me.” Ichabod masked under 
his name, Huykos, followed after, knowing that the 
knight was captive to the maid and feeling very happy 
over the circumstance. As he rode, his mind ran for- 
ward to the wedding, and he laughed again and again 
at the witty things he imagined himself saying at that 
wedding. Suddenly the scene changed from one of 
careless delight to one filled with the frights of impend- 
ing peril. At a turn in the road, from behind a wall, 
there rose up a company of Mamelukes. Rizpah saw 
them the instant her companion did and exclaimed, 
as she half turned her camel : 

“ Let’s race back to Gerash ! ” 

But four dusky sentinels were behind them. They 
were surrounded. 

“’Tis fight or flight, the latter futile,” whispered the 
knight. They paused, and Ichabod joined them. Sir 
Charleroy drawing his sword again spoke : “ Comrade 
it’s a desperate chance ; a dozen to two ; but we have 
taken such before together ! ” 

“Let the knight say a dozen to three,” exclaimed 
Rizpah, as she drew from the folds of her garments a 
saber before unseen and touched the edge expert-like 
with her thumb. 

“ Oh, brave, pure girl ! I don’t fear death ; I’d court 
it for thee, but” — Sir Charleroy paused and looked un- 
utterable misery ; then instantly recovering and em- 


A St arte or Mary? 1 77 

boldened by the danger that threatened to soon end 
all, he exclaimed : 

“ Rizpah, thou rememberest my knight-vow at 
Purim ; thou shalt see how I’ll keep it ; if I perish, re- 
member I have loved thee as I never loved any other 
being.” The words were very vehement, but probably 
very true. Rizpah blushed, brushed a tear from her 
eyes and then, in the frankness that such an hour en- 
genders, replied: “And I thee — ” the rest was drowned 
in the wild shout of the Turks as they close about the 
three. But they had not counted upon such a recep- 
tion as those two men and that one woman gave them. 
Ichabod fought like a roused mastiff, without a thought 
of fear for himself. He struck vehemently, but a 
calm settled smile was on his countenance. Sir Char- 
.leroy saw it and years after said, recalling the incident, 
“ amidst the greatest perils there’s a wondrous peace 
to one who feels he is striking for God, close to the por^ 
tals of death and judgment.” The knight himself 
fenced with the rapidity of lightning. Again and again 
by ones and twos and threes, the enemies charged down 
upon him, but he fought with the prowess of a crusader, 
the fire of a lover. Those parts had never before wit- 
nessed such splendid swordsmanship. As the attack 
had been sudden, so was its ending. Two Turks fell 
beneath Sir Charleroy’s weapon in quick succession, 
and a third fell under his own horse, which was desper- 
ately wounded by a sweeping blow from the knight. 
At the same instant, almost, Ichabod and one of the foe- 
men, whom he was engaging, fell in significant silence, 
while another struggled to drag Rizpah to his steed 
that he might make her captive. Sir Charleroy, 
wounded and faint, dealt the latter miscreant a stag. 


178 The Queen of the House of David. 

gering blow and the maiden, plucking a small dagger 
from the folds of her garment, finished with a single 
thrust her captor’s earthly career. 

Those of the marauders that were able, in fright took 
flight, wheeling away more quickly than they had 
come. 

^‘Rizpah, wilt thou go to Ich — Huykos? I can’t,” 
softly called out Sir Charleroy. 

The maiden flew to the Jew’s side, but quickly started 
back, crying : “ Oh, knight, come quickly ! He’s dead !” 
Just then, looking back, a sudden horror fell upon her, 
for she saw Sir Charleroy half reclining against a rock, 
bleeding and pale. Like lightning she thought : “ Both 
dead ; I alone ; home miles away ; the Turks hovering 
near.” 

But the thought of her own peril was only momen- 
tary, and after it there came more rapidly than can be 
written the thought that one dear as her life was dead, 
dead for her sake. Instantly, on feet that seemed 
winged, she was at Sir Charleroy’s side. All her being 
merged into one great, instant impulse to save her 
lover. Over him she bent, and with passionate sorrow 
tried with her garments to staunch the flow of blood. 
In the sincereity and frankness that the presence of 
death ever brings, she arose above all prudishness and 
impulsively kissed the cold lips of the knight. His 
eyes opened, and he faintly murmured : 

I’m so happy, dear Rizpah. I know now it is well.” 
A little later he murmured : “ Flee now for home. 
Thou’lt reach it by sun down. Leave me. To tarry is 
to court a harem prison.” 

“ Hush,” impatiently responded she ; “ see this dag- 
ger?” and she held it close to his half-closed eyes. 


A St arte or Mary? 


My pious father gave it me when I was but a girl. 
He told me it might some time save me from dis- 
honor. It did so to-day, once. If those black demons 
return, sure as my name is Rizpah, it will do so again, 
even though I turn it toward my own heart.’' 

“ Better flee, my love.” 

Not 'till thou can’st go, too.” 

I may die.” 

‘‘ Then, I’ll go into the shadow land with thee.” 

The knight was silent. The pain of his wounds was 
forgotten in the joy of that lone companionship. But, 
after all, his mind, perturbed by the shock, the pain, 
the dangers, was unable to rest. He tried to say to 
himself the prayer of the dying crusader, but the words 
were confused. He could not remember many of them ; 
those he remembered, seemed to be unwilling to go 
heavenward for mercy. Some way in the clearness of 
judgment as to simple right and wrong that comes to 
a mind on the confines of death, he found himself con- 
demned. He was haunted by a vision that came to his 
mind first the day he decided against conviction, at all 
hazard, to follow the family of Rizpah and Harri- 
mai to Gerash. The vision was that of the false 
prophet Zedekiah, making himself horns of iron, and 
with them appearing before the wicked King of Israel, 
Ahab, to proclaim, not the things of God, but the 
things the prophet knew would meet the desires of 
his royal master. The wounded often fall asleep ; 
it’s nature’s way of recovering from a shock and of 
chaining pain in forgetfulness. Sir Charleroy knew 
not whether he- was sleeping or not; but the vision 
passed in painful vividness over his mind. He heard 
the prophet’s voice saying: “Go up to Ramoth 


i8o TJie Queen of the House of David, 

Gilead, and prosper.” Then he saw a true prophet 
of God standing nigh, with sorrowful countenance, 
and the face was that of the Madonna. The latter 
moaned in his ear, warningly ; “ Who shall persuade^ 
that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? Then 
there came forth a spirit and said, I will persuade T 

The spirit was black-garbed, in a blood-spotted gar- 
ment, and wore, as Sir Charleroy seemed to see the 
apparition, a scarlet crescent, and the knight thought 
of Astarte. He heard in his vision the beatings as 
of mighty wings, rising to flight, and tried to turn 
and see who the departing one was. It seemed as 
if the spirit of Astarte-like countenance transfixed 
him with a gaze, so he could not turn ; but a lone- 
liness and darkness, almost palpable, came over him, and 
he knew it was the Madonna-faced prophet that had 
departed. The knight started up as if to rise, but, 
awakening, found Rizpah’s restraining arms about him. 

“ Stay,” she soothingly said. Thou art feverish, 
and too weak to rise. Thou’lt be better presently; 
the blood has ceased flowing.” 

‘‘Oh,” he groaned; “I had such a dream!” 

Just then Rizpah beheld coming in the distance, 
from toward Gerash, a horseman, at rapid pace. Her 
first thought, “The enemy returns.” Her second 
brought her hand swiftly to her reeking dagger, as 
she soliloquized : “ He’s only one, and I’m one ; if 
but a woman.” 

The rider drew nearer, and she was almost over- 
come with the revulsion from fear and despair ; for 
the comer was Laconic, the “ news runner.” He 
knew the maiden, and wheeling his steed to her side, 
with his usual brevity, cried out : 


Astarte or Mary f 


i8l 


Why, didst thou kill both ? ” 

Shame on thee ; 'twas the Arabs ! ” 

“ I thought so. I met two horsemen and two rider- 
less steeds, galloping away down the road. I knew 
they’d been at some devilment." 

“ Good runner, in the the name of God, speed thee 
to Bozrah, or somewhere, for help, and bring it quickly." 
Bring? not so ; send. / come not ’till my set day ! " 
“ Any thing ; but hurry ! ’’ 

Hurry! Yes, hurry ! I love hurry." 

He was away like an arrow, in his course. His steed 
leaped over one of the dead miscreants and Laconic 
shouted back : “ Carrion dinners 1 Thank God ! ’’ 


CHAPTER XIIL 

FROM RAMOTH GILEAD TO DAMASCUS. 


“ Daughters of Eve ! your mother did not well : 

JlC * * * * * * 

The man was not deceived, nor yet could stand : 
He chose to lose for love of her, his throne, — 

With her could die, but could not live alone.” 

“ Daughters of Eve ! it was for your dear sake 
The world’s first hero died an uncrowned king : 
But God’s great pity touched the great mistake 
And made his married love a sacred thing ; 

For yet his nobler sons, if aught be true. 

Find the lost Eden in their love of you.” 

— Jean Ingelow. 



OR many days Sir Charleroy lay wounded at 
the house of the Patriarch Harrimai, and 
she for whom he had periled his life was 
his constant attendant. He sorely needed 
her services, and all Gerash, the priest included, con- 
ceded the fitness of Rizpah’s rendering the aid she was 
able to render. The maiden was all willing to minister, 
and as she ministered her interest in the man deep- 
ened. When she began to look up to him as her teacher 
before the battle with Mamelukes, she began a sort of 
worship ; when she saw him fighting to the death in her 
behalf, her worship became an engrossing adoration. 
If there had been any thing more required in order to 



From Ranioth Gilead to Damascus. 183 

enlist all the affection of which her being was capable, 
these opportunities of administering to her suffering 
lover furnished it. As God loves because He has 
helped a needy one, so a woman’s heart easily flows out 
toward the object for whom she has performed pious 
services. On the other hand, Sir Charleroy was more 
and more enchanted, for there is life and charm beyond 
all description to the touch of the queen of a man’s 
heart when he is in trouble or pain. 

Rizpah, in woman’s most queenly garb, the one ap- 
pointed her at her creation, that of “ help-mate,” was 
beautiful indeed, and queenly indeed, to the man whose 
heart had enthroned her. When alone, they treated 
each other with the frank, earnest tenderness, fitting as 
well as natural, to the betrothed. Though they did 
not admit it even to themselves, they had fully deter- 
mined to be one, at all peril, in spite of any opposition, 
reason approving or disapproving. They often said to 
one another, Our betrothal taking place at the very 
gates of death w^as therefore a very solemn one that 
nothing on earth can annul.” The sentiment was per- 
fect and very agreeable ; and with them a beautiful 
and agreeable sentiment became as controlling as if it 
were a revelation from heaven. In this, they w'ere 
perfectly human. They even persuaded themselves of 
God’s favor, thanking Him for what they were pleased 
to call His Providence, namely the peril and long sick- 
ness leading to the betrothal and days of love-life to- 
gether. They were right in conceding that God’s hand 
was in. the battle; but they were impious in interpret- 
ing His Providence to be fully in accord with their 
desires. In this, too, they were very human. But there 
were shadows about them ; for while at; times they 


184 The Queen of the House of David, 

drifted along on prismatic tides of Lethean delights, 
there were other times when they remembered that 
there was to come a day of explanation, with probable 
following storms. Both were glad and sorry at once, in 
view of each day’s improvement of the knight’s physi- 
cal condition. Convalescent, they both realized, meant 
a great change in their relationship ; perhaps a long 
separation. Their anxiety was deepened by a change in 
the demeanor of Rizpah’s father. His eyes no longer 
questioningly followed the young people ; but his words, 
uttered in tones of steelly coldness and very deliber- 
ately, bespoke discovery, conviction, conclusion and 
determination. One sentence often addressed to the 
lovers, was to them like the rumblings of an approach- 
ing, gathering storm. “ Our friend is improving, and 
I’m very glad that he will be able soon to go to his 
own dear people.” The lovers discerned a peculiar 
emphasis on the words I’m glad ” and “his own dear 
people.” The politic priest, having read, as from an 
open book, the heart-secret of the young people, was 
awaiting with self-confidence an opportunity to con- 
found them utterly. The crisis came one Sabbath 
morning, just after the morning meal of the convales- 
cent. Harrimai had paid his usual visit and uttered his 
steelly sentences. This time the words seemed espe- 
cially cruel to Rizpah, for she was nervous, indeed ill; 
the prolonged services and anxieties she had experi- 
enced of late were telling on her strength. As Harri- 
mai departed, she gave way to a flood of tears. Riz- 
pah was not wont to weep, nor was Sir Charleroy 
skilled in comforting; but both he and she were lovers, 
hence it, seemed very natural to her frankly to pillow 
her head on the knight’s shoulder, and very natural to 


Fro 7 n Ramotli Gilead to Damascus. 185 

him to seek to comfort with a tenderness all new to 
him. Had one asked Rizpah if she were going back to 
babyishness, or .forward toward heaven, she could 
not have answered. Had one asked the knight if he 
were becoming motherly, or turning priest, he could not 
have answered. He felt very tender, and his work of 
comforting seemed like an an act of high piety. Both 
were glad of the tears which brought the joy of com- 
forting and being comforted, then, there and that way. 
They were passing into a superb mood when quite un- 
expectedly to them, but quite expectedly to himself, 
Harrimai suddenly re-entered the apartment. He 
expected to surprise them and he did so, thoroughly. 
The scene following was exciting, dramatic and 
decisive. 

Rizpah, with a slight scream, disengaged herself 
from Sir Charleroy’s embrace, and hid her face in her 
hands. The eyes of the knight and priest met ; neither 
quailed ; both remained for a few moments silent ; but 
their fixed gaze said plainly enough, each to each, “ We 
must have a settlement here and now ! ” Harrimai 
spoke first, addressing himself to his daughter : “Young 
woman, this conduct is immodest and disgraceful! In 
a Hebrew maiden, heaven defying ! I’ll speak to thee 
further of this presently. Now, begone, and leave me 
to deal with this man I ” Harrimai made arrogant by 
his profession and the implicit obedience he had been 
wont to receive from his followers, expected to fill the 
young people with dismay by the suddenness of his 
assault. But Rizpah, though young, was no tongue-tied 
spring, and Sir Charleroy of Gerash was still Sir Charle- 
roy of Acre. 

The words “ dishonorable,” “ immodest,” stung the 


1 86 The Queen of the House of David. 

maiden ; sullenly, defiantly almost, she settled back 
in her seat and leaned toward the knight, as if to say, 
“ I cast my lot with this man.” Her eyes plainly, an- 
grily said to the man whom all her life hitherto she 
had reverently obeyed, ‘ Now do thy worst.” It was 
impious, passionate, love going headlong from filial 
duty and religious instruction to the shrine of Astarte. 
The parent was chagrined at this unexpected repulse, 
but with his usual adroitness pretending not to notice 
it, he turned to the knight. “ Stranger, this outrage ex- 
cuses abruptness on my part ; who art thou ? ” 

Sir Charleroy arose from his hammock, the excite- 
ment and shock of the rencounter finishing his recov- 
ery, by rousing all the machineries of his system into 
normal activities. 

“ Sir Priest, Fve nothing to conceal. I love the truth 
and this maiden too well to lie — I am a Christian 
knight.” 

‘‘ I knew it ; but thy confession shortens our parley. 
Now, ‘ Christian knight,' tell me why thou didst attempt 
to allure to thyself the affections of a mere girl ; a 
Jewish maiden whom thou canst never hope to wed? 
Dost thou so pay our hospitality; setting at defiance 
parental authority and our Jewish laws? Dost thou 
under the favors of this house intrigue to quench all 
its light ? ” 

“ Thou brandst that girl and me with the epithet ‘ dis- 
honorable ; ’ and thou a priest! Men of thy holy call- 
ing should never slander, especially not their own 
kin and strangers.” The knight was livid, but not with 
fear. 

“Can an Israelite slander Crusaders? these profes- 
sors of high religion, these followers of an impostor, 


From Ramoth Gilead to Damascus. 


187 


these enemies of my people, these practicers of 
intrigues, races, jousts, gluttonies and drunkenness ; 
men whose sole serious business is murderous war? 
Tell me?’’ 

The knight’s face flushed a little, but with complete 
self-control he replied : 

Some of my comrades have been unworthy men, 
'tis true ; but some Jews have fallen to every crime 
and violence. Have all fallen? Thou hast not, per- 
haps ! Shall all be maligned for the few ? What says 
Harrimai ? ” 

“ Thou art of those, who come to thrust us out of 
our land and thrust in here a hated creed ! " 

I am of those who live to serve the needy and erring.” 

To the proof ; I’ve heard from thy clans only of 
bloodshed.” ‘ 

Our order sprung up four hundred years ago, under 
the stirring appeals of religionists as pious and hu- 
mane as thou; or any of thy kind since Aaron. We 
were begotten in a time when grim famine made the 
well-fed wondrous kind. Those hours that make men 
universally akin.” 

Go on ; ^ Christian knight,’ I’d like a lesson of 
that sort.” 

“Then remember Noah’s covenant of peace. On 
our banners often we have our spirit expressed by a 
dove flying toward a tempest-tossed ark ; in the mes- 
senger’s beak an olive branch ; around the whole the 
bow of promise.” 

“ Well what of all this 

“ The ark is the world ; the rest is plain.” 

“ Oh, a charming theory,” sarcastically responded 

Han'imaif 


1 88 The Queeri of the House of David, 

“ I wear it next my heart ; ” so saying the knight 
threw aside his cloak and drew from around his body a 
banner he had hitherto concealed. “See here, ‘ 
tity,* ‘ temperance,' '‘courtesy' Our mottos in peace or 
war ! Women, children and pilgrims, in a word the 
needy the world around, are the wards of all true 
Christian knights ! ” 

“ Mottoes ! words ! Oh, yes, words ! But then the 
Crusaders have used swords! Their words Til meet 
with words to their confounding, nor while I live will I 
forget their cruel weapons.” So saying the priest swept 
out of the sick chamber in manifest rage. 

He returned in a moment, and with the self-com- 
mand of wrath, conscious of power, said : “ Thou 
wouldst make all men akin ! Thou and thine are 
dreamers, the world thinks ; to-day it laughs to scorn 
this bootless pursuit of a chimera. Leave us forth- 
with and in the peace that thou foundst here. When 
the kinship is reality, thou mayst come to us for fur- 
ther talk ; ’till then remember thou art a Christian, I 
a Jew ! ” 

“Thou art religious! Heavens! what '' tender 
shepherd.” 

Harrimai was very much angered, but he retorted 
with self-control ; “ Oh, yes, and the God of all hath 
seven garments. In creation, honor and glory ; in 
providence, majesty ; as lawgiver, might and whiteness ; 
of spotless light when he appears as a Saviour. He is 
clad with zeal when he punishes, and with blood red 
when He revenges. I would be like Him. By the 
glory of God ! thou follower of Nazereth’s Impostor, 
sooner than suffer thy blood to contaminate my family 
lines, I’d hew thee to pieces as Agag was hewn ! Riz- 


From Ramoth Gilead to Damascus. 189 

pah, thou knowest me ; wed him and thou’lt be wid- 
owed, though carrying the unborn ; though widow-hood 
broke thy heart. I’d rather a thousand times see thee 

lying dead by thy true Jewish mother than 

The priest, in a tumult of fanatical passion mingled 
with the grief of offended pride, lacked for words to 
express the climax of his feelings; so covering his 
tearless eyes, as one weeping, he rushed out from 
those he had assailed. He persuaded himself that he 
had spoken all for the glory of God ; the lovers thought 
of their solemn betrothal and their love which they 
were certain was as fine as any earth ever knew, and 
they felt that they were martyrs. Both sides appealed 
to God and in a spirit very ungodly, but very human, 
braced themselves for opposing war. 

When the maiden became somewhat calm. Sir 
Charleroy found words to question : 

Harrimai cannot find heart to blast his idol’s hap- 
ness ! H e does not mean all he said ? ” 

, Alas, he does. It’s part of the Patriarch’s religion 
to hate such as thou, as he does. He means more, if 
possible, than he spoke. Our people unveil the bosom 
and cover the mouth ; thine cover the bosom and unveil 
the mouth. Ye talk, we burn.” 

“ Has pure love like ours no sanctity in his sight ? ” 
“Alas, he can not- believe any love pure that is be- 
tween Gentile and Israelite. He was sneering at ours 
a few evenings ago, when he remarked as we were 
looking at the stars, ‘ Hyperius or Venus of the even- 
ing is mistakenly called the star of love. Lucifer of the 
morning is the true emblem of most young love. It 
rises in maddening brightness, but fades out of sight 
very soon/ 


190 The Que^n of the House of David. 

Grim omen! We took Venus for our betrothal 
star; they say it is so bright at times that it casts a 
shadow. I feel its shadow now,” said the knight, med- 
itating. 

‘‘Yes, shadows and shadows!” exclaimed Rizpah, 
with a flood of tears, and she swayed back and forth 
as she wept. She was driven by tempests of fear that 
made her ready to flee, and held by anchors of passion- 
ate loving that made her ready to brave all fears ; 
therefore the swaying and weeping. At intervals the 
two communed and debated concerning the one all- 
engrossing theme, their future course. 

“ Rizpah,” comfortingly spoke the knight, “ when 
in the greatest peril of our lives, we were drawn, by 
danger, closer to each other.” There was a glance of 
entreaty in her eyes as if to say, “ Go save thy life and 
let the Jewish maiden die alone;” but the knight drew 
her to his bosom, and she responded by an embrace of 
passionate clinging. 

“ I go from Rizpah only at her command or death’s,” 
said the knight solemnly. 

The maiden shuddered, and again passionately clung 
to her lover. He interpreted her action, and again 
comfortingly .spoke : 

“ Fear not ; earth has somewhere a refuge for us 
until death call us ! ” 

“ Somewhere ? What, go away ?” 

“ Yes. It is that or separation.” 

She knew that full well. But to flee from home with 
the knight, the alternative presented to her mind, 
startled her. At first thought it seemed a reckless, 
perilous, unfilial. God-defying act ; then it seemed at- 
tractive because so daring. A tumult of arguments, 


Prom Ramoth Gilead to Damascus » 

Questionings, fears and yearnings mingled in her mind. 
She had never learned to arrange arguments, pro and 
co7i^ judicially. What woman whose feelings were 
aroused ever did that ? 

He pressed on her flight, enforcing each reason pre- 
sented with an affectionate embrace ; her tongue spoke 
not, but her embraces replied to each of his. She had 
a conscience, and it asserted itself until she placated it 
by a half formed resolution to be very prudent and do 
nothing rashly. The resolution comforted her at first ; 
then she began to follow it, mentally, to its sequence. 
She thought of her father praising her piety as her 
purpose was disclosed. Something within, coming like 
a voice from her heart, mockingly whispered Go on." 
She pursued the meditations, and heard, in imagina- 
tion, her neighbors praising her as a martyr of love for 
faith’s sake. Again the mocking inner voice said, “Go 
on." Again her thoughts moved forward until she saw 
that conscience was driving her to separation from 
Sir Charleroy ; in a word, making her walk in a funeral 
procession, her own dead heart on the bier. The 
thought made her shudder and recoil; then the 
knight’s arms encircled her more closely than before. 
Again and again she took the foregoing mental jour- 
ney, again and again recoiled, shuddering from the 
alternative of separation from her lover, and at each 
recoil felt his grateful embrace. Each time she trav- 
ersed the mental course the journey toward duty by 
the privation of love^ seemed more onerous. Distaste 
was followed by repugnance ; then utter weariness. At 
last, utterly wretched, her purposes and perceptions fell 
irito hopeless confusion, and she exclaimed “ Charle- 
roy, Charleroy, save me!” 


ig^ Xhe Q,ueen of the House of David. 

The knight was at a loss to divine fully her meari-i 
ing, yet tenderly he answered : 

^‘Save Rizpah? She knows I’d do that in death's 
teeth ! ” 

“ Oh, Charleroy, ’tis not death, but life, that I fear. 
How shall I live?" 

Quickly he ejaculated : 

“ With me, forever, and safe ! " 

The maiden remembering many an admonition she 
had heard concerning the inconstancy of lovers, yet 
driven forward by the all-abandoning love of hef 
woman’s heart, gave voice to all she felt and feared in 
one vehement interrogation : 

“ Oh, Charleroy, if I forsake all for my love of thee 
shall I ever be discarded by ? 

The knight interpreted her meaning in advance, and 
answered by an embrace that was all-assuring. He 
was rejoiced beyond words, for he knew full well that 
hesitation and questionings like hers were on the rim of 
full surrender. Suddenly he became very serious and 
felt that peculiar glow that came over him the day of 
his departure from England when the bishop blessed 
him. He appreciated in a measure the responsibility 
following such a committal of another’s life to himself 
as Rizpah was making, and he embraced her with an 
anxious reverence, such as a pietist feels clasping an 
ideal of his God. It was well for both that the man 
was thus impressed by the committal of that maiden 
of her soul and body to his pilotage. Pity the woman 
who reaches the extremity Rizpah had reached if her 
conqueror be not white-souled and sincere. 

Rizpah, an incarnation of passion, a wreath of lotus 
flowers on a sea of delight, tossed by the winds, borne 


From Ramoth Gitead to Damascus 193 

by the tides, surrendered all thoughts that might 
disturb, that she might enjoy what she had embraced 
as her fate to the full. 

Sir Charle;'oy constantly prayed within himself^ 
“ My mother’s God help me to deal as purely with my 
sacred charge as I would with the Virgin Patron of my 
knightly order, were she here now to seek my knightly 
services.” The prayer was effectual, for the Knight 
sincerely sought to make it so. 

Decisive action followed this interview between the 
lovers. That very night they fled together from Gerash, 
and with only one trusty servant ; after many vicissi- 
tudes they reached Damascus. For a time Rizpah 
placated her conscience by asserting that she would 
not consent to the wedding ceremonial until it could 
have her father’s approval, or that of some Jewish 
Rabbi. Finding it impossible to obtain these, she irre- 
solutely suggested the advisablity of delaying until 
some change, quite vaguely apprehended, might come. 
But there were two Rizpah’s — one that wanted to be a 
faithful Jewess, and one that wanted only and con- 
stantly a darling idol. Sir Charleroy sided with the 
latter ; it was two to one, and the one surrendered. 
Ere long a Christian missionary at Damascus sealed the 
vows. They confided their story to him, as if to ask 
his advice as to what they had best do, but with the 
impetuosity of lovers they had decided their course 
before they asked advice, and did not even ask it 
until they had pledged their vows before this priest. 
But it was a balm to conscience to ask advice. And 
the Sacrist answered them briefly: “Venus and Mer- 
cury, fabled deities of love and wisdom. They are 
much alike in the firmament, and revolve in orbits in 


194 The Queen of the House of David. 

accord with the earth's. Methinks it is wisdom to love 
in the earth. But, children, Venus sets sooner than 
Mercury ; see to it that you make it your wisdom to 
love as long as you go round with the world.” Then 
they both said “Amen.” For a moment Sir Charleroy 
heard within him that impressive sound as of the beat- 
ing of mighty, departing wings. He dragged his at- 
tention quickly from the introspection to gaze into 
the eyes of his bride. He was glad that a Chris- 
tian priest had prayed for a blessing upon himself 
and her, but all sophistry aside, the truth remained; 
Astarte's was the presiding spirit at that wedding. 


• CHAPTER XIV. 


THE THEATER OF GIANTS. 


** Once more we look and all is still as night, 

All desolate ! Groves, temples, palaces 
Swept from the sight and nothing visible, 

* * * * Save here and there 
An empty tomb, a fragment like a limb 
Of some dismembered giant.” 

“ Og, the King of Bashan, came out against us to battle at 
Edrei, and the Lord said unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver 
him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand. And we took 
* * * * three-score cities of the Kingdom of Og, in Bashan.” 
— Deut. iii.] 

“ Bashan is the land of sacred romance.” “ His mission [Paul’s, 
Gal., I : 15] to Bashan seems to have been eminently successful. 
Heathen temples were converted into churches, and new churches 
built in every town.” “ In the fourth century nearly the whole of 
the inhabitants were Christian.” “ The Christians are how nearly 
all gone.” “ Nowhere else is patriarchal life so fully exemplified.” 
“ Bashan is literally crowded with towns, the majority of them 
deserted, but not ruined.” “ Many are as perfect as if finished 
only yesterday.” — Porter’s “ Gia 7 it Cities^ 

OR a brief period the delightful seasons, the 
famed rivers, the stately surrounding moun- 
tains, the paradisiacal plains, the antiqui- 
ties, the pleasure gardens and palaces of the 
city of Damascus, whose name by interpretation is 
“ change," offered sought-for gratification to the knight 



ig6 The Queen of the House of David, 

and his bride. Harrimai died suddenly after th^ 
elopement of his child, the only person on earth whom 
he truly loved, the only one that had ever successfully 
defied his mandates. He had purposed disinheriting 
her for her act, but before he could execute that pur- 
pose, death disinherited him. Some said that he died 
of a broken heart ; the physicians said he was taken off 
by a fit ; Sir Charleroy said he died because his proud 
will was crossed. Rizpah inherited a fortune that 
helped both her and her husband to forget the old 
priest’s maledictions by enabling them to enjoy all 
there was to be enjoyed in Damascus, “ the eye of the 
East,” They gave up unreservedly to pleasure, and 
centered the world more and more in themselves. Sir 
Charleroy did this easily, reasoning that, having had 
so many pains, he was entitled to compensating pleas- 
ures. He heard from England ; and the news was to 
the effect that there had been changes and changes in 
his native land. Many of those he once knew, includ- 
ing his mother, were dead ; and he himself was forgot- 
ten as dead. Sententiously, bitterly he summed up 
his feelings: “They thought me dead; and, my mother 
and her fortune being gone, did not care to find out 
whether I was dead or not ; therefore let them think 
as they thought.” Rizpah feared the lashings of con- 
science, and, having given up every thing once dear to 
enter the life she had, courted forgetfulness of the past, 
pleasure for the present. The two had within them- 
selves exuberant youth, a wealth of possibilities of 
happiness ; the elements that, like the abundance of 
the volcano, paints the sky gorgeously when rising 
heavenward ; like it, in the downward course, followed 
by darkness and disaster. The two, differing in almost 


The Theater of Giants. 

^vefy thing but fervor of temperament, were in accord 
in pursuit of change; they persuaded themselves that 
they were growing to be like each other, when they 
were only exalting the one thing, love of excitement; 
in which they were alike. 

Damascus, naturally, in time, became uninteresting 
and vapid to them both. They wore it out ; they 
wanted new scenes. They heard that a caravan of 
Mohammedan pilgrims was to pass through their city 
on the way to Mecca to procure besim balm and holy 
chaplets, and promptly determined to journey with it ; 
but not to Mecca. The caravan was to pass through 
Bashan, and the two excitement-seekers desired to visit 
the latter land of wonders. They readily garbed 
themselves as Mohammedans, though once they would 
have loathed such garbing as a defilement. They 
desired company toward Bashan, and since the time 
they defied their consciences in order to be wedded to 
each other, their consciences had been wont to be very 
submissive in the face of their desires. They explained 
to themselves the absence of qualms of conscience in 
the face of a pretense of being Moslems, as the result 
of a growth toward liberality on their part. The 
explanation made them comfortably complacent, 
although the fact was that they had passed far beyond 
liberalism toward nothingism. 

Passing Musmeth and Khubat of the Argob, they 
tarried after a time at Edrei, just inside the shore line 
of that mysterious black, lava sea, the Lejah. They 
were in a country where nature, art and desolation had 
done their greatest. Following a passing impulse 
seemed to them to have brought them thither, but one 
believing in God’s constant providence will readily 


IqS The Queen of the House of David. 

believe that they were led thither as to a school. There' 
were omen and prophecy confronting them. These 
fervent souls had gone from hymen’s altar filled with 
romancings, under a glow of prismatic auroras, never 
pausing to perceive that from each wedding time there 
winds a troop of serious years burdened with many a 
commonplace duty. Their love had been volcanic, 
their impulses ecstatic, their aims toward things filled 
with commotion. The wine in their cup was to leave 
dregs; after the'fire there was to be ashes, and it was 
fitting that they contemplated a specimen of great des- 
olation and dreariness, the result of great fires and 
great storms. So they were within that wonder of the 
world, three hundred and fifty square miles of awful 
plain, filled with ruined towns and cities. Heaved up 
here and there by jutting basalt rocks, the plain seemed 
filled with black ice-bergs ; ridged at intervals the plain 
suggested an ocean wave-tossed. Therein is many a 
cave and cranny place, fit abode for the wild beast or 
robber ; fit abode for ghosts, if one seeks to believe 
there are such. But therein were only a few green 
spots, oases, to bid the traveler welcome. Ere long 
the knight and his consort wore out the Lejah, and, in 
so doing, in part, wore out themselves. They had a 
fullness of the pleasure of the kind which lacks recrea- 
tion. As it was, they stayed there longer than it was 
well for them to stay. 

Rizpah, the passion flower of Gerash, experiencing 
the supreme exaction of womanhood now, began to 
droop. Months spent in pursuit of excitement, the 
great change in her manner of life, as well as the 
oppressive desolations of her surroundings, had drawn 
heavily upon her resources physically. Reaction after 


The Theater of Giants, 


199 


exaltation, and nervous discord after nervous tension 
are natural results, always. 

The knight discerned the change of temper, and as 
an anxious novice went about correcting the matter. 
He knew little concerning woman, except that love of 
her intoxicates ; delighting in the intoxication he 
sought to stimulate Rizpah’s flagging energies by 
pushing her onward into the feverish brilliancy that 
was so delightful to himself. It was an attempt 
to cure physical impoverishment by the renewal of its 
causes. She was at times complacent, because incom- 
petent to resist ; passive, because enervated. He was 
most selfish, though not realizing the fact, when trying 
to be most tender. In fact, the twain were on the rim 
of a test period in their married life and being unskilled 
in its common places, unfitted to stand the test. Sir 
Charleroy had recourse to the only physician he deemed 
adequate ; one whom on account of his dress he called 

Old Sheepskin.” This was a guide, with a motly 
group of Druses assistants, and an unpronouncible 
name. 

“Come, Rizpah, *01d Sheepskin Jacket' has put on 
his red tunic and leathern girdle to carry us a camel 
voyage in-sea ; if we do not give the man a job he’ll fall 
to stealing again.” 

Rizpah languidly shook her head. 

“ But we must patronize the man to keep up what 
little honesty he has, and he has some. He told me 
but yesterday he'd rather work than rob — though the 
pay be less, so is the danger less.” 

The knight was telling the truth as well as trying to 
be facetious. 

Again Rizpah replied with a weary shake of th^ 


200 The Queen of the House of David, 

head, her hands rising deprecatingly, then falling into 
her lap as if almost nerveless. 

But, Rizpah, while we are here we ought to fully 
explore the changeless cities of this dead, black, lava 
sea. There are none other like this on earth ! 'Tis 
nature’s desperate effort to outrun phantasmagoria.” 

Rizpah shook her head and waved her hands ; this 
time vehemently, as if to repel a horror. 

‘‘ What ? A fixed no ? ” 

“ No more excursions into this counterpart of hades 
for me.” 

“Well, so be it to-day, at least,” with surrendering 
tones, the knight replied. 

“To-day? All days! Oh, God, remove me from 
this nightmare ? ” 

So exclaiming, the woman covered her eyes, shud- 
dered and wept hysterically. 

Sir Charleroy was almost overcome with sudden 
amazement. The tears, the terror, the complete 
change before him, were beyond his comprehension. 
After a time he again spoke : “ Why, this is a sudden 
freak or frenzy. I thought Rizpah fascinated here 1 ” 

“ I’ve had my notice from the dread sprits that in- 
fest the place to go ! Didst thou note what dark and 
threatening clouds dipped down like vultures upon me 
when we were last there ? ” vehemently Rizpah replied. 

“ I only saw a threatening of rain that came not. It 
seldom rains in the Lejah.” 

“There was rain enough in my poor, shivering, weep- 
ing heart 1 ” 

“ But, I wonder, Rizpah, thou didst not tell me of 
these feelings before!” 

I could not copfide then; I was too jealous!*' 


The Theater of Giants. 


201 


Jealous? What a word! But of whom, me ? ” 

I can never forget that thy union with me has 
made thee alien to thy people and in part neglectful of 
the faith for which thou didst once fight bravely. I 
can not forget that the Teutonic knight was the devotee 
of a bepraised Lady Mary. I thought of this that black 
day, and I felt as if those dry, grim clouds were her 
frowns. It was thou, my Christian husband, who named 
the Lejah, ‘Tartarus,’ and it has been such for some 
time to me. Its sight has constantly burned me with 
remorse ! That day it seemed to me thy Mary pitied 
thee and blamed me 1 I writhed under the thought ! 
I, for a moment, hated her. I felt like climbing some 
height, and, club in hand with defiant curses, challeng- 
ing her right to have a finer care of thee than I have. 
I’d have done it, if thou hadst not been here to laugh 
at the folly of my frenzy. Ah, husband, if she is or was 
all that thou dost depict her, she can not love me, and 
thou must contrast us to my disparagement. I can not 
forget that thou wert a Christian soldier; sworn to war 
for her and her son; now thou art wedded to me, a 
daughter of her and His persecutors ! ” 

“Why, Rizpah, thy changing moods are appalling; 
thou dost beat the magicians who conjure up the dead, 
since thou dost create out of nothing the most hideous 
ghosts to haunt thyself — Maya ! Maya I ” 

“ Oh, yes, I know ‘ Maya,^ wife of Brahm, by inter- 
pretation ‘illusion.’ A myth, as a gibe, has a sharp 
point, effective because so difficult to parry. But, alas, 
ridicule, though it easily tear to pieces delusion, is power- 
less to disperse the gloom that sits in a soul as mine.” 

“I’ll not ridicule my Rizpah^ but I would bring her 
light,” 


202 The Queen of the House of David. 

“Ah? That is, resurrect the peace thou didst mur- 
der?” 

“Show me one wound my hand has made and I’ll 
abjectly beg all pardons, attempt any atonement ! ” 

“ Dost thou, knight, remember the ruins of the Chris- 
tian church of Saint George, at Edrei ? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

“And thy conversation there?” 

“Yes, that Saint George was England’s patron saint, 
famed for having slain the dragon which imperiled a 
king’s daughter.” 

“ More thou didst say ; thou didst expatiate on the 
princess, saying her name was Alexandra, meaning, 
‘friend of mankind’; further, thou saidst there was a 
queenly woman by name, Mary, daughter of the King 
of Kings, friend beyond all women of humanity, for 
whom every true knight was willing to be a Saint 
George.” 

“True enough; but to what purport now is this 
reminiscence? ” 

“ Thou saidst Saint George was loyal to the death 
to his faith, and died a martyr ! ” 

“ True again. What of it ? ” 

“ Was the Teutonic knight thinking of himself as a 
martyr because wed to a Jewess? I followed thy 
thoughts, though they were not all spoken. How nat- 
urally that day thou didst tell me of thy visions which 
thou' hadst between Gerash and Bozrah when wounded 
nigh to death. The English saint, knight, very loyal to 
creed, rebuked in his dreams, by the beating of mighty 
wings, the departing of his heart’s rose ! Oh, why 
didst thou not tell me this before it was too late ! I 
would have helped thee escape the ingenuous Jewess, 


The Theater of Giants, 


203 


Thou didst awaken then with dread bleeding, to find 
thyself pillowed upon the bosom of a simple-hearted, 
loving girl ; I now awaken, wounded indeed, but with 
none to staunch the wounding! Why, de Griffin, 
didst thou keep this secret so long? Why unfold it 
now?” 

‘‘Td be the Saint George of Rizpah and slay her 
dragon, gloom.” 

“ Poor comfort to offer since the gloom is beyond 
thy powers ! Flout my mood as thou mayst ; what 
use? I vainly denounce it. Thou hast had thy 
dream ; now I’m having mine. I’ll not mock thy in- 
sights ; thou canst not by bantering jeer change mine. 
My Lejah omens assure me that I’m to have a rain of 
tears and more ; some way thy Mary will be their 
cause.” 

“ Rizpah errs ; the queen I revere was a living epistle 
of good will ; her character the joy and inspiration of 
all women, especially of those in tribulation. But 
enough ! Rizpah, being a Jew, should abhor the necro- 
mancy of omens ! ” 

Jew ! Ah, yes ; I was once ! But the valiant Eng- 
lish knight lured me into his Christian love and my 
race’s hate. I had once the luxurious faith of a pious 
girl ; all feeling, all flowers ; too young to reason, but 
young enough to love the good and beautiful unto sal- 
vation. The knight poisoned the blossoms before 
they ripened by the acids of ridicule ! There is a loss 
beyond repair and a bitter memory, that of a broken 
promise; under our love-star thou didst swear thou 
wouldst never lightly treat my believing. Venus has 
set. Mercury is rising ; but wisdom brings a burning 
glare. The promise that the knight failed to keep was 


204 The Queen of the House of David. 

made when I was, he said his idol ; now Fm only his 
wife ! ” 

“ Rizpah exchanges the glory of the rose for the bit- 
ter gray of the wormwood." 

‘‘Fm thy handiwork; now mock the result, if to do 
so comforts thee." 

My handiwork ! " 

** Yes, fool ! " 

** These words are awful." 

‘‘ I think so and I hate them ; though I can not check 
them. I hate my temper and even myself when in 
such present moods. De Griffin, pray as thou didst 
never pray before, that I do not learn to hate thee. I 
pity thee, because Fve some love left." 

“ Pity?" 

“Yes, when I imagine thee wriggling beneath the 
malignant detestation of which I know I shall soon be 
capable." 

“ My wife, in God’s dear name, banish these moods ! 
They are impious, unnatural ; the crisis of thy being 
falsely accuses thy heart. Be calm ! " 

“ Calm ? ‘ Be calm ! ’ Very good ; calm me, please, 
if thou canst. Oh, why didst thou make me thus?" 

“ The God of all peace forgive me if I did, Rizpah ! " 

“ Thou wert the elder and shouldst have known?" 

“What?" 

“ That to unsettle a woman’s faith, if she be such as 
I, is to let loose a bundle of blind vagaries and to 
tumble her, like a drifting wreck, on unknown shores." 

“ Oh, wife, as thou hopest for heaven and lovest our 
unborn child, restrain these moods. Thou’lt mark the 
one to be, with germs of all evil ; for such outbursts of 
mothers re-act with awful effect upon their offspring. 


The Theater of Giants* 


20 $ 


Thou knowest how the old nurse, at Damascus, killed 
a babe in an instant, merely by giving it her breast 
after she had yielded to an outbreak of passion. Such 
tempers hurl poison through all the being!” 

“ Alas, knight, that all this prudence ever comes just 
a little too late ! ” 

“What could I have done better?” 

“Left the little maid of Harrimai’s home free from 
thy enchantments and to the quiet of her people’s 
state.” 

“But I loved thee so. That atones for all.” 

“ Thou thoughtst thou lovedst, but ’twas my form 
which fascinated thee, not my mind nor soul ! ” Riz- 
pah’s face became ashen pale, her eyes had a far-off 
gaze and were steelly, as she began plaintively to repeat 
the words, ‘ There zvere giants in the earth ^ * . 

Thej/ sazv the daughters of men, Adamish, that they 
zjuere fair and they took them for zvives of all they chose, 
and they bore children and it repented the Lord that He 
had made man, for He sazv that the zvickedness zvas 
great in the earth*' Thou wast my giant-lofty. Thou 
stolest my heart and body. Now for a flood to punish 
the sin, and my tears are already its first droppings.” 

“ We are wed ; shall we not now make the best of it ? 
Even when into this mystic alliance unmated lives 
converge, they can still with wisdom extract from it at 
least peace. Go fervently, firmly, back to the faiths 
of thy girlhood ; become again all thou wert, except 
that thou be ever mine.” 

“ Ah, ha ! how little, after all, thou knowest of woman’s 
heart? Thou wouldst command it do and be ; and go 
and come, wouldst thou ? Thinkst thou, thou canst 
make such heart as mine wild with the strange intoxi- 


2o6 The Queen of the House of David, 

cations of unholy fire, filling the brain above it with all 
the clouds, weird longings, doubtings and misgivings, 
that fume up from that fire, and then send that heart 
back without a compass, chart, sail or helm, to find the 
haven ? Send it lashed by remorse part of the time, 
part of the time half dead to all feeling, and all the 
time blind, to hunt up lost creeds.” 

^‘But God provided an ark; let us ask Him to aid us 
build one in a home, with happy parents and happy 
children. Thou readst to me, but yesterday, the 
Prophets’ beautiful description of a lamp burning with 
oil supplied from two palm trees ; one on either side. 
I’ll interpret ; the trees are parents, the lamp the light 
of home, manifest in posterity, reproduction ; a pro- 
phecy of the resurrection.” 

“Beautiful mysticism. But the giantesque men rose 
to play at lust, just beside Sinai of the law.” 

“ Not so I, the Teutonic knight, now the husband. 
Rizpah ; thy desperate misery appeals to all my man- 
hood. I swear to thee I’d turn my heart’s blood into 
the oil to cause our home to glow with the serene 
light of holy happiness.” 

“Words, words ; how sad, because so beautiful, yet 
so vain ! ” 

“ Oh Rizpah,” cried the knight, too anxious to be 
angry, though the woman’s words were stinging, “ thy 
looks startle me ! Pray God to rest and hold thy wor- 
ried soul.” 

“ Pray? I have tried, often of late, to pray, but I 
do not know how. I fear thou hast stolen even that 
power from me! Ugh! the last time I prayed, my 
words seemed like black cormorants rising with loads of 
carrion; then falling struck dead by the sun, into great 


The Theater of Giants. 


207 


black caves, such as abound in our Lejah hell ! I 
heard my words flung back at me in mockery. Pray? I 
dare not, lest God strike me dead for a hypocrite and a 
heretic ! ” 

“ But my poor, dear wife,” soothingly said Sir Char- 
leroy, “ He is merciful.” 

“Oh, yes, to the good and the faithful; I’m neither! 
I gave Him up for a man, as the Adamish men gave 
him up for -women. I madest thou my God, and now 
have none other; for He of the heavens is very holy, 
but very jealous ! ” 

“ Rizpah, Rizpah, do not thus give way to these wild 
imaginations.” 

“ Give way ? Alas, all is already given away ; soul 
and body were on an idolatrous altar long ago. I’m 
buried in the ashes ! ” 

“ But Rizpah, trust my love: I’ll help thee back to 
peace and usefulness.” 

“ Bah ! the masculine great I ” 

“ Heavens ! woman, is there any love in a heart that 
so hurls javelins?” 

“ I don’t know! I suppose so, for I pity thee.” 

“ Pity me ? ” 

“ Yes ; when I think as I do at times, that thy wife is 
turning into a devil, a very devil ! Sir Charleroy de 
Grififin, knight of St. Mary, dost hear me ? A devil, a 
raging devil, and one that will pity while she assails.” 
The last sentence was almost screamed, then the woman 
fell on the rug of their apartment and wept convulsively. 
After a little there was the silence of exhaustion, of 
chagrin, of shame. Sir Charleroy stood by the prostrate 
form and with words half commanding said : “ Let us 

ride out a little way.” He was trying a new strategy. 


2o8 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ No, no, no ! Thou'lt take me to the Lejah, and I 
shall see that dread omen again." 

“ What ? " As he questioned he raised the woman 
tenderly from the floor. 

“ The lava desert, in long rolling waves, black and 
drear." 

“Ah, Rizpah, thou knowest that it was only thy un- 
reined fancy, heated by morbid broodings, that changed 
the eternally-fixed furrows of the plain, overshad- 
owed by running clouds into threatening billows ! God 
and the sun are above all clouds and behind every 
anxious heart. Look up ; look in, until thy soul finds 
Him ; then the horror of darkness will die away." 

“ Oh, how thy comfortings hurt me, because I do not 
believe in thee, nor believe thee ! Thou sayst that thou 
didst abandon thy Christian, perfect queen of women, 
for me. I know thou must be chagrined at the bad 
exchange ! I can not honor nor trust the faithfulness 
of one so fickle. No matter for that, but what comes 
after is worse. Those black sky-drapings were over the 
Lejah that day because I was there. I know — I know 
there’s a tide of sorrow rolling toward me. I see it 
as I saw those black, serpent-like, lava waves. But, oh, 
the suspense ! It’s awful ; let the worst come if only 
soon ! ’’ The knight, sworn to protect helpless women, 
saw himself disarmed and powerless to aid the one 
woman of earth for whom he would have died. 

Two giants at bay in Giant Land, where another 
mold of gianthood had died leaving nothing but 
monuments to attest the greatness of the failure. The 
two knew only this, that they were very miserable and 
powerless, by any means accustomed, to extricate 
themselves. 


The Theater of Giants. 209 

r 

Sir Charleroy wished and wished, in his soul, that his 
patron saint and queen of women would appear and 
tell both what to do. He unconsciously was turning 
his mind’s eye in the right direction. Husband and 
wife both believed there was a right way, a pattern of 
right, and an ideal of heaven, but they could not lay 
hold of them. Giant, crusader and husband, each in 
turn strove in his day at the same spot, and at the 
same point failed. 

Sir Charleroy, in mind, went out along a strangely 
beset line of thinking. Sometimes he pitied himself, 
and that brought the balm of conceit. He remem- 
bered it was a fine thing to be a martyr, forgetting that 
some, rewardless, suffer as sinners. Sometimes he 
heard those beatings of mighty wings, as if some won- 
drous holy one were departing. Then he became very 
penitent and full of the entreatings of prayer. Either 
mood was brief enough to him not yet converted ; a 
very Peter in vacillations. Whether he would finally 
follow the beating wings or sit down nigh to the gates 
of certain insanity, the gates that those who over-much 
pity themselves are sure to reach, was the issue in his 
life then. The bugles of war call few to the hero- 
ism of the field, but millions are daily called by God’s 
bugle to the better achievements which make for glory 
amid the duties of common life. That latter bugle was 
calling him, but he was slow to obey, or understand 
even. 

The events recorded in the foregoing pages roused 
Sir Charleroy to an anxious effort to do something to 
change the currents of his wife’s thoughts. Necessity 
quickened his discernment, and though he had had but 
little experience in dealing with those ill in the body or 


210 The Queen of the House of David. 

mind, he quickly concluded that a change of place and 
a change of pursuit would be beneficial. In truth, his 
own feelings attested this much. He himself was weary 
of the pursuit of excitement as a sole and constant 
occupation. 

“ Shall we leave the Lejah, Rizpah ? ” he ques- 
tioned, a few days after the outbreak before men- 
tioned. 

‘‘Yes, I say! — I’m leaving it! See here,” and she 
pointed to her cheeks, once ruddy, now haggard. “Oh, 
Charleroy, take me away or death will ! ” 

“ Enough ! We’ll go. But where ? ” 

“ Any place under heaven ; say the word and I’ll run 
out of the place instantly, leaving all here.” 

“ What, our effects ! ” 

“Any thing to get away. I feel like a child ap- 
proached by some monster terror, hour by hour ! For 
days I’ve been transfixed by my fear or I would have 
run away, even alone, before this. Now thy words 
break the spell! Come, let us go before I’m overcome 
again ! ” 

“ There, now, be calm. No more of this undue nerv- 
ousness. We’ll go, and soon. What says Rizpah to 
Bozrah, southward of Bashan ? ” 

“Yes, to Bozrah ; historic Bozrah ! ” and the face of 
the woman brightened as she went on : “ It was the 
fairy land of my youth. I’ve wanted to go there since 
I was a wee little thing, scarce able to walk.” Then 
the woman unbent and talked with the rapture of a 
child : 

“ Oh ; I’ve wanted to see Bozrah all my life, since 
the days when my old nurse used to talk me to sleep 
with stories of Og and his bedstead nine cubits long, 


The Theater of Giants, 21 1 

and how our little Hebrew, Moses, overcame those 
Rephaim.” 

“ Thy prophets and psalmists, as well as thy nurses, 
were wont to go into rapturous descriptions of the lofty 
oaks, loftier mountains, ragged plains, marvelous pas- 
tures and goodly herds of the Hauran and Trachon- 
itis.” 

Rizpah continued in gleeful strain ; ‘‘ Oh, those 
herds ; if I can’t see old Og, I’d like to see the famous 
bulls of Bashan ! Show me something huge, no matter 
how huge, if alive and not black! I’m becoming in- 
fatuated with the strong and the large. If ever I lose 
my soul it will be by worshiping, pagan-like, some- 
thing mightier than I can imagine ; of body or muscle. 
Yes, yes, I’ll be a thorough pagan since I can not be a 
Jew nor a Christian ! Now, I forewarn thee.” So say- 
ing she laughed merrily. The knight was rejoiced to 
hear the musical, natural laughter again, and encour- 
aged the play of her wit, which attested a mind un- 
bending to rest. 

‘‘ Woman-like, adoring the huge when the grand 
can not be found. Thank God, the giants are all dead ; 
there are none at Bozrah, at least. I’ll not fear the 
little dirty Arabs, or pigmy Druses as supplanters.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE REVELS OF MEN AND RITES OF THEIR 
GODDESSES. 

“ Rude fragments now 

Lie scattered where the shapely column stood. 

Her palaces are dust. In all the streets the sprightly chords 
Are silent. Revelry and dance and show 
Suffer a syncope and solemn pause ; 

While God performs upon the trembling stage 
Of His own works His dreadful part, alone.” 

— COWPER. 

“ Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain 
shall be among their idols, round about their altars * * * upon 

every high place * * * under every thick oak.” — Ezekiel vi. 

ASSING from Edrei toward Bozrah the pil- 
grim knight and his wife with their con- 
voy reached Kunawat, the Kenath of Scrip- 
ture, once the dwelling place of Job. Here 
for a time they abode. The number and variety of 
castles, temples, theaters and palaces in ruins, were 
sufficient to engage the attention of the travelers for 
many days. Rizpah was more cheerful than she was 
at Edrei, but yet restless to reach Bozrah, on which 
place her heart was set. 

One day standing before an old Roman temple in 
Kunawat, Rizpah, somewhat interested by its well pre- 
served Corinthian columns, and Sir Charleroy deeply 
engrossed in contemplation of an huge stone image, the 
former asks ; “ Has the knight recognized an old Eng 



The Revels of Men and Rites of their Godesses, 2 1 3 

lish or a new Bashan love ? ” The woman was finding 
the oft-repeated and prolonged visits to this particular 
place monotonous. She was annoyed, but modified 
her rebuke into raillery. 

“There is something very fascinating in the Cyclo- 
pean face.” 

“ A broken stone fascinate a man ? But I see ’tis 
that of a woman ; the brain part gone. Would that 
the English knight had wed such ; then he might have 
been loyal to creed, and not a martyr!” 



ASTARTE. 

“ Rizpah knows that I could never have loved a 
brainless face, nor any one akin to this Kunawat 
goddess.” 

“Not if she echoed thy ‘aye’ and ‘ nay ’ consist- 
ently ? Be careful ; as many strong men have fallen by 
having their conceit gratified as there have fallen 
)vomen through flattery,” 


214 


The Queen of the House of David. 


“ How absurd to hint that I could be so lured.” 

“ But the knight says Astarte fascinates ! ” 

I said so, meaning that I’m fascinated by the 
train of thoughts that the image awakens. Think a 
moment ; we, the living of to-day confronting the 
acme of the thought of the ages long gone. Looking 
at this, I seem to be seeing over rolling centuries, right 
into the hearts of humanity that lived thousands of 
years ago.” 

“ All this might have been taken in at a glance ! 
Having seen it, what use is it ? ” 

“Use? To aid in finding a key to life’s problems. 
I’m filled with questionings ; do not yearnings, such as 
beat through the being of the ancients pulse in those 
of to-day? Are not humanity’s temptations and needs 
ever the same ? ” 

“ Since the ancients did not tarry to compare with 
us, I, being only a woman, of Gerash, of to-day, can 
give only the shallow answer, I suppose so.” 

“Oh, I’m not questioning Rizpah ; but the ruins, the 
air, time, my soul, God ! ” 

“ And their reply ? ” 

“ Bewildering echoes of each question? ” 

“And it’s all a mystery to Sir Charleroy ?” 

“ I know a little ; something, next to nothing.” 

“ Possess curious me of that little, and I’ll help thee 
wonder why so much greatness came to naught.” 

“ That wondering is easily met ; they had, as god, one 
whose head could be broken as this one’s was ; they 
that would survive must be sheltered by the Invin- 
cible-.” 

Rizpah, meanwhile had drawn close to the huge stone 
face and placing one hand beneath the mouth, the 


The Revels of Men and Rites of their Goddesses. 

other on the portion of the head just above the moon 
crown, her arms stretched well nigh to their limits 
quizically remarked : 

“ Those that dined with her must have had pyramids 
for chairs. What dost thou think they were like?” 

“ Crusaders ? ” 

“Now, Tm tantalized. Crusaders two or three 
thousand years ago ? How absurd ! ” 

“ Oh, certainly they were not known by the name, 
Crusaders : but they that followed Astarte and such- 
like deities, whether called Kenaihites, Rephaim, Mos- 
lem, Christians, or by other appellation are all soldier- 
pilgrims, dominated by an ideal. There have been 
many female deities among the pagans and there is a 
deal of paganism left in humanity.” 

“ That's because half the race are men. Astarte 
would be very popular to-day with thy sex, if she were 
here in living form, a whole woman, instead of a frag- 
ment and beautiful also — ” 

“Thou dost not care to hear more of the female 
deities? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; Fll be fearfully jealous if thou dost 
keep any thing back. Tell me what madmen the 
ancients were?” She paused, slapped the face of the 
image, ejaculating “ Virago ! ” then continued, “ Why 
did they make their effigy both hideous and huge ? 
Ugly things should be dwarfed ! ” 

“The ancients, who knew not the grandeur of moral 
power, gave their deities terribleness in their physical 
proportions, and a mountain of flesh became their ideal 
of greatness — men ever try to make their objects of 
worship greater than themselves, thou knowest. Hast 
forgotten what Ichabod once told us of the Egyptians? 


ild The Queen of the House of David. 

How they expressed their reverence by piling up pyr- 
amids and made that very diminutive which they would 
caricature ? Oh, how our true religion, having at its 
heart an only, all-beautiful, Almighty God, rises above 
these human devices ! ” 

“ I wonder that it did not, at its first appearing on 
earth, instantly overthrow all others.” 

“ And it is a still more wonderful thing that those 
who embraced it, having known, should have sometimes 
gone back to paganism? Thou dost remember that 
God’s chosen people, after enjoying marvels of His 
Providence, plunged headlong into idolatry in the very 
presence of His splendor at Sinai?” 

“ With shame I remember it. I marvel as well that 
this record, which evokes the ridicule of the grosser 
heathen, was made part of our Holy writings.” 

“ God’s compensation ! The people stripped them- 
selves of their jewels to make the calf ; then of their 
garments to worship it according to the lewd rites of 
Apis. God since has lashed them naked around the 
world, as it were, by giving their history to all times. 

^ Be sure your sin will find you oiit* is a stern truth 
haunting the conscience of the evil doer; but though 
exposure is a bitter medicine it is a saving one. God 
as such applies it.” 

“ I think the devil crazed the people at Sinai.” 

*‘Yes, Rizpah, but Human Desire was his name. 
The revelers made their devil as well as their calf, 
that day.” 

“ But it is said ‘ they rose to play.’ If so disobedi- 
ent and heaven-defying how could they have found 
heart to play ? ” 

“ Odious, significant word that one is, here. It was 


The Revets of Men and Rites of their Goddesses. i\f 

a ^ play' that engulphed all purity. No wonder they 
ceased to observe the ‘ burning mountain ! ’ Only the 
pure in heart can see God,” 

“ Thank God ! that thy people and mine have finally 
escaped, my husband.” 

“ So far as we have escaped, I thank Him ; but, alas, 
the evangels of Egypt’s scarlet heresies still go about, 
and there are many, everywhere, led away in chains that 
seem of flowers at first, but are found to be of galling 
iron at last.” 

I did not know this ? ” 

Oh, these modern perverters disguise their horrible 
tenets with many refined phrases ; yet He that over- 
whelmed gross Sodom and the jewelless, naked dancers 
about the golden bull, sees through all their thin drap- 
ings and will judge the free lover, corrupt socialist and 
libertine as He did those ancients. The Assyrian and 
Egyptian representations of Venus generally appeared 
holding a serpent ; a sort of bitter admission of the 
curse in the hand of perverted love and the fierce lash- 
ings that follow it.” 

“ I fail to connect the ancient with the present here- 
sies, my good teacher.” 

I pause to-day here, reminded of their common 
origin and consequences. God put it into the hearts 
of His creatures to love women, honor motherhood, 
and worship Him. Read Sinai’s law, and this is all 
manifest. There came a perversion ; the love of woman 
was degraded, motherhood was denied its honor, and 
men became God-defying. There was a confusion 
worse than that of Babel, and the worshiping was 
transferred, first, to symbolized lust ; then degraded. 
They that adored Venus, knowing how her adoration 


2 1 8 The Queen of the House of David. 

had depraved themselves, came to believe that she scan- 
dalized the heaven they imagined. Then came a time 
when her earthly rites even scandalized the wiser 
pagans.” 

“ My husband leads me along strange ways. Is it 
wise to do so ? ” 

“ I see a grand end ; follow me. There is a deep 
significance in the fact that among the pagans there 
constantly appeared this adoration of woman on 
account of her power of motherhood. I take this 
adoration as proof of a conscious need feeling after a 
vaguely discerned truth. The yearning is suggested by 
the paired gods. Assyria had its Beltis, consort of 
Bel-nimrud ; and there were Allelta of the Arabians, 
the many-breasted Diana of the Ephesians, the Aphro- 
dite of the Greeks, Ceres and Venus of Rome, this 
Astarte of the Giants ; beyond all, in utter odiousness 
Khem,the Phallic god of Egypt. Amid all these false 
ideals, the divine home with its pure love and our im- 
mortality by grace’s mystery, were overslaughed in hu- 
man thought. The glaring passions, that were unwill- 
ing to believe in other immortality than that that comes 
through posterity, other heaven than that of sensuous 
pleasure, fascinated and dominated hearts and souls.” 

“And worshiping women-gods did this.” 

“ Worshiping beings with the form of women did 
it! Reverence for true womanhood ever exalts and 
never degrades. But these ancients adored very gor- 
gons with snakes for hair, and having tearing, brazen 
claws. They set these gorgons with the Harpies, in 
their mythologies, at the gates of dark Pluto’s palace. 
Alas, where men are led by ill-flavored women, is ever 
more Pluto’s gateway.” 


The Revets of Men and Rites of their Goddesses. 

“ The up-digging of these ancient soils, knight, give 
forth foul odors. Did they not dread a just and jeal- 
ous God ? ” 

“ No. It IS the constant voice of history that false 
belief concerning these things of which I have spoken, 
brings both blindness and degradation. Unbelief comes 
swiftly in the wake of impurity. The gorgons had but 
one eye and that had the malign power of turning to 
stone all upon whom its glance fell. When men deify 
a fallen woman then look fora cataclysm of evils. Riz- 
pah has seen little of the’ world, but this in time she’ll 
find true ; the man whose cult or faith bends toward 
the libidinous is on the way to utteratheism. So these 
old-time free-lovers, like those of to-day, push out 
of the universe in , their belief, the Great, Beautiful, 
First Cause. The pure in heart see God ; the impure 
can not even pray to Him. The latter must be aided 
by an Immaculate One. They make a gulf betwixt their 
souls and heaven, which Great Mercy alone can bridge.” 

Ah, knight. I’d dread a return of those gross idol- 
atries, knowing mankind’s trend, but that I knew that 
Shiloh was to come as a Reformer.” The knight 
caught at the words of his wife to lead her toward his 
own dear belief. 

“ If He came to Rizpah in the form of a man, unique 
because of his virgin purity, unlike any other in being 
all unselfish, and accompanied by a peerless woman, 
exemplifying all that is best in the gentle sex ; between 
Himself and that woman a love deep to love’s last depth, 
pure as a sunbeam, enduring as eternity itself, would 
Rizpah welcome Him ! ” 

“That would be a wondrous coming; but I’d wel- 
come Him.” 


220 The Queen of the House of David, 

“Does Rizpah believe such an appearing desir-- 
able?” 

“ Oh, on my soul, yes ! If he should so come, me- 
thinks the rites which have gone on in the secrecy of 
the groves, under the uncertain light of the moon, would- 
be driven from the earth, and men come to worship^ 
God, taking that man for the ideal of manhood, that 
woman as woman’s pattern.” 

“ Dost thou see that stone with eight lines crossings 
lying just there^by the image of Astarte?” 

“ I see it and the lines ; but what of them ? ” 

“ In the far East, the land of the Fire Worshipers,- 
on almost all the handiwork of man that symbol is' 
placed. It is to represent an eight-pointed star, the 
Assyrian sign of immortality.” 

“ Eight lines crossing to represent immortal life 
This is inane ! ” 

“ Not quite. I had its explanation from my wander-- 
ing Jew, Ichabod, learned by much travel in the lore 
of many peoples. He thus interpreted the symbol 
as the Assyrians understood it ; man, a four-pointed! 
star; his four radiate limbs suggesting that likeness. 
Thou knowest that the Israelites have been wont to call 
men stars ? The Assyrians, not having the sure word, 
were led to seek by human philosophy a theory of 
immortality, and they got no further than twice four, 
two human beings in union ; so eight or a double 
star, their symbol of marriage, represented the only 
immortality they were able to find ; that that comes 
from reproduction. At least that was the only reality, 
the rest being very vaguely believed, and believed only 
because they thought that the mystery of a new life 
coming forth, was a hint of a spiritual method analo- 


The Revets of Men and Rites of their Goddeiies, 221 

gous to the material. They then fell to worshiping the 
sun, the great fructifier and light of nature ; fire, the 
essence of passion, became their highest god. It is 
said that those Magi of the East, that arrived long ago 
at Bethlehem, were fire worshipers, and that in answer 
to a cry for light, constantly uttered by their race, they 
took their journey to Judah, seeking it.” 

“ The world must turn to Israel ever for the truth, 
Sir Charleroy.” 

“ For some truth ; not all ; but there is a tradition 
that the star the wise men followed was a double one, 
two planets in conjunction. There is a fitness in the 
legend, for the seekers of light were brought to the cave 
where lay a mother and babe ; the latter God’s finest 
presentment of immortality, the Incarnation ; the fruit 
of the Divine in union with the human. I stand over- 
come with wonder and reverence when I remember 
that they of the East had some light from the Jews 
they held captive ages before. They lost most of what 
they had, then, longing for its return, God answered 
their prayer by taking them to the finest of schools, a 
blessed home circle. Behold all the East looking for 
light at Bethlehem ! ” 

Rizpah evaded her husband’s graceful attempt to 
impress on her Christian tenets, by replying: “ I prefer 
the Jewish choice number Seven, though I can not give 
it fine interpretations, as thou to the Eight of the East.” 

Rizpah prefers it because it is Jewish, and I prefer 
Seven because I read therein a covenant ; for Seven is 
the sacred covenant number of God’s Word. Let me 
interpret: There is a Triune God, symbolized by 
Three ; then man, the child of chance, the being tossed 
hither and thither by the four winds, a complex union 


522 The Queen of the House of David. 

himself of body, mind, animal life and immortal spirit. 
Four is his representative number, or symbol. The 
Assyrians paired fours; the Jews vaguely discerned a 
grander path to eternal felicity through the con- 
junction of God and man, the Three and the Four. 
From this they derived their covenant number, 
Seven.” 

These are charming explanations. Sir Charleroy ; 
especially so, if sure ones ! ” 

“ But the truths are fairer than my poor words. I 
read that at creation the morning stars — meaning the 
beings that know no night, the very sons of God — 
shouted for joy ! They saw an immortality having its 
springs in the being of the Eternal, and were glad. 
Since then the race has diverged into two lines. The 
gross and unbelieving, seeking to effect the apotheosis 
of human lust, have gone their ways reveling under the 
moonlight, and building their fanes in the groves 
which fade, while the believing and God-taught have 
walked in a covenant toward Him, ‘Who only hath im- 
mortality dwelling in light.’ Rizpah, some day that 
home group at Bethlehem, a father, mother, and child, 
surrounded by angels, overshadowed by God, will come 
to be thought the finest ideal of this life. Yea, a pic- 
ture of Heaven itself ! ” 

The knight’s wife fixed her piercing, dark eyes on his ; 
there were expressed in her countenance admiration 
and fearfulness. She was charmed by his lofty senti- 
ments, yet apprehensive of being led into some dan- 
gerous, Christian heresy. Fanaticism always has a 
terror of heresy, so-called, even though it seemed to 
be full of white truth. Presently she questioned: 

“ So Og, great as a mountain of flesh, and Astarte, 


The Revels of Men and Rites of their Goddesses. 223 

goddess of the pleasure that kills, only, of all Kauawat’s 
ancients, have left enduring names ? ” 

“ One other name endures, the ages brightening its 
luster — Job, loyal to the last, in spite of the devil and 
a virago wife.” 

Poor woman ! say I of Job’s wife. None have told 
her side of her family troubles. May be Job haunted 
the grove of the moon-crowned ? ” 

*‘Maybe? Never! His splendid orations bespoke 
a man walking nigh Jehovah. Listen : ‘ If I beheld the 
moon walking in brightness, if my heart hath been 
secretly enticed, or my mouth kissed my hand, let 
thistles grow instead of wheat.’ He said this amid 
the votaries of the Lust-Queen.” 

“And Job may be praised, not only as proof that 
there has been one patient man on earth, but as proof 
that a good man will stand pure to the last, though the 
world about acclaim the praise of delightful sins ? ” 

“ He stood because entranced by his beautiful ideal. 
He loved Him whose name is Holiness.” 

“ Heaven comes at last to such.” 

“Job was God’s best friend on earth in his day, and 
his Heavenly Father gave him as his reward His best 
earthly gift — a new, pure, happy, fruitful home.” 

“ Are we through now with the fascinating image, 
knight ? ” 

“ Yes, Rizpah, if we take to heart its warnings. May 
we preserve our integrity, and have a home as our re- 
ward finer than that of the Man of Uz; yea, verily, as 
fine in its tempers and virtues as that of Bethlehem.” 
So saying, the knight led Rizpah toward their abode, 


CHAPTER XVI. 


A BATTLE OF GIANTS AT BOZRAH. 

“ Sleep — the ghostly winds are blowing ! 

No moon abroad — no star is glowing. 

The river is deep and the tide is flowing 
To the land where you and I are going ! 

We are going afar, 

Beyond moon or star. 

To the land where the sinless angels are I 

I lost my heart to your heartless sire 
(’Twas melted away by his looks of fire). 

Forgot my God, and my father’s ire. 

All for the sake of a man’s desire ; 

But now we’ll go 
Where the waters flow. 

And make our bed where none shall know.” 

— “ The Mother's Last SongT — Barry Cornwall. 

“ How shall we order the child, and how shall we do.” — 
Judges xiii. 12. 

IR CHARLEROY and his consort took up 
their abode in one of the many deserted 
ancient stone houses of the city of Bozrah. 
The latter, situated in one of the most 
fertile plains of earth, once having upward of one 
hundred thousand inhabitants, several times having 
risen to metropolitan splendor, ages ago sank into 
neglect, decay and desolation. But with wonderful 
persistence that city preserves the records, or relics, of 



A Battle of Giants at Bozrah, 225 

what it was in better, greater days. The antiquarian 
to-day finds in and around Bozrah the dwellings, 
palaces and temples of many and various peoples, 
some piled in strata-like courses, one above the other, 
each layer the tombstone of its predecessor; some 
as fine as they were forty centuries ago. The 
annalist there has at hand as an open book the 
achievements of some of the mightiest men of earth, 
physically. The latter were contemporary with that 
line of God’s moral giants, of which Abraham, Moses 
and David were representative leaders first, and Christ 
finally. The strata of Bozrah tell of differing policies, 
politics, religions ; all alike in one thing — the attempt 
to build upon the buttresses of giant force ; but they 
present in the end the one result — failure; all being 
equally dead at the last, if not equally herculean at 
the first. Sheer robustness in the armies of Rome, 
the Turk, Alexander, and Og wrought out their best 
about the Bashan cities, and in that theater played 
the eternally losing game of all such. It seems as if 
God had chosen that part of all the world to illustrate 
Ihis great lesson of His providence. The Roman, 
Mohammedan, Greek, and others like them, there had 
their brutal and sensuous existence. There the Crur 
sader carried also his banners; but the end of the 
Rephaim was the forerunner and prophecy of all the 
other giantesque gatherings that followed after them, 
Each passing race and dynasty left its monuments 
and tokens of possession ; but of all, those of the 
first, the giants, are the most enduring, most wonder^ 
ful. These dateless^ huge, rugged, fort-like dwellings, 
standing just as they did four thousand years ago, ex- 
cept that they are mostly unoccupied, are impressive 


226 The Queen of the House of David. 

monuments and reminders of the mighty denizens 
who once abode within them. There are ruins of 
temples, palaces, houses of commerce and places of 
amusement, but chiefly of homes ; the latter, sig- 
nificantly, instructively, being the best preserved of 
all. Sir Charleroy observed this circumstance, and 
casually remarked to Rizpah, as they bestowed their 
effects in one of the ancient domiciles: 

If ever I take to building, I’ll build abiding places 
for people, only. Such are the most lasting.” 

But while he came thus near to a royal truth, he did 
not make it his own. It passed through his mind and 
he felt its light, as one might that from the wing of a 
ministering spirit, while his eyes were holden and his 
back turned. He immediately left the angelic thought, 
to go wandering through years of misery, before com- 
ing back face to face with it again. Sir Charleroy and 
Rizpah, a western soldier and a woman of Israel, two 
giants in their way, began a new career at Bozrah. It 
was providential. Measuring power by the only avail- 
able test at hand, namely, what it accomplishes, it was 
manifest long ago to all that the brawn of the Cyclops 
was not the master force of the word. Hercules 
cleansed the earth of mythical, not real evils. Sir 
Charleroy and Rizpah are fittingly brought to the thea- 
ter of the giants for the purpose of testing the potency 
of giantesque sentimentality and stubborn, mighty 
ardor. To this end, two will do as well as a nation, 
and a decade will be as conclusive as a score of gene- 
rations. The husband and wife entered Bozrah gladly, 
and quickly adapted themselves to their new surround- 
ings. They were both very impressible, and there 
were many things in their new environments that in)- 


A Battle of Giants at Bozrah, 227 

pressed and stimulated them. Nature’s face and loca- 
tions may be changed by man, but he can not change 
her heart. She, on the other hand, is invincible in her 
conquests of both his face and inner being. Climate 
and environments determine the characters and careers 
of the majorities. The sleets of the North, in time, 
will goad the sensuous Turk or Hottentot to high 
activity, while the Cossack or Esquimaux, under tropi- 
cal suns soon fall into luxuriousness and laziness. Boz- 
rah began its molding of the knight and his wife. 
Rizpah and Sir Charleroy were at first attracted to 
Giant Land by the hugeness of its monuments and 
ghostly greatness of its record. They received at Boz- 
rah their first impulse to settle and make a home. 
Probably they were largely influenced by the con- 
viction that, in its way, there was nothing more 
entrancing or majestic beyond. For the best results 
to them, the second selection was altogether unfortu- 
nate. They had made their home in the midst of 
battle-fields, and the atmosphere that hung over all 
things was like that over a defeated army, sullenly sub- 
mitting. The new comers from the beginning, in their 
new home, were immersed in ghostly memories, and 
that atmosphere so like the breath of a bound yet 
struggling giant. They were affected more than they 
realized by all these things. 

‘‘No more tours, no more worlds, for us to conquer ! ” 
exclaimed the knight. 

Rizpah, her cheerfulness of mind largely recovered, 
replied to this remark of Sir Charleroy with a ban- 
tering laugh, at the same time pointing upward. 
Quickly, and with retort cruel as a giant’s javelin, he 
cried : 


228 The Queen of the House of David. 

“ Alas, so soon Rizpah seeks my final departure 
from her ! ” 

The cavalier was no more ; it was the brusque and 
gross within him that spoke. Had he been courtly, even 
without being Christian, he would have been consider- 
ate enough not to have cruelly jested concerning that 
which lay in his wife’s heart as a possible and sad fact. 
Often the thought of eternal separation from her hus- 
band, even from eternal hope, haunted her now. 
Her husband knew this. 

For a moment his answer seemed to stun her; then 
the affectations of pouting on her mobile face, coming 
when she pointed upward, changed into lines of anger. 
A hot flush mounting up to the roots of her hair, hung 
out the warning signal. 

The knight, pretending not to observe the change, 
twined his arms about his wife and mockingly sighed : 

“ Poor girl ! I can find no wings on thee. I once 
thought thou hadst such. They must have dropped 
off.” 

There was no reply. He then began to retreat, to 
placate, and to that intent drew her closer and closer 
to his heart, until, embracing her, his hands clasped ; 
but, for the first time since the event near Gerash, 
when the Arabs were vanquished, his caress was with- 
out response. He tried a thrust thus : 

“ Well, beloved, since thou dost banish me, bestow 
a kiss of long farewell.” 

Quickly, Rizpah flung aside his embracing arms and 
cried: “ Shechemite ! Tm no Dinah, won by false 
professions! ” 

“ Shechem was more honorable than all the house of his 
father f quoted the knight in reply. 


A Battle of Giants at Bozrah. 229 

“ He loved himself, his passions ; to these gods he 
gave up with all devotion, and they immolated him. 
That was good ! ” 

Why, Rizpah, thou art pettish." 

“ ‘ Rizpah ! ’ Thou art adroit in using bitter similes ; a 
brutalizing power, when brutally used ! Now, call me 
‘Jarnsaxa.' Thou toldst me, yesterday, how that 
mighty male god of the Norse, Thor, while hating her 
people, to the death, stole Jarnsaxa. Yea, and how 
many giants fell for women. Perhaps thou didst want 
me to pity thee. We are in Giant Land now, and thou 
canst begin to play Colossus ! " 

The knight was startled, and quickly entreated : 
^‘My queen, lets drop the masks; no more of this; 
forget my sarcasm, and I’ll forgive the recriminations. 
A truce and pardon, in the name of love. What says 
Esther ? ’’ 

“ ‘ Esther ? ’ Thou calledst me that when cavalier, 
turning lover. Thou art neither now ! " The sen- 
tence ended in a petulent sob. 

Oh, stay now. It was playfulness. I — there, now ! 
Canst thou not brook a little playfulness from me ? " 

^‘Playfulness? Bah! Ye men play so like lions, 
forgetting to keep the claws cushioned ! But, now 
thou hadst better be going, saint — the only one here ! 
Go, now, right along to heaven. They want thee there. 
They want thee, not me." Then she choked back 
another sob, but instantly thereafter, dashing the rising 
tear from her eyes, she bitterly exclaimed : “At any 
rate, thou’lt have company I " 

“ Whom, pray ?" 

“ The begetter and chief of all restless vagabonds ! " 

“ So ; I never heard of him. Has he a name, my dear ? ** 


230 The Queen of the House of David, 

The knight was sarcastic, because he was nettled. 

Rizpah’s eyes glittered with the fire of offended 
pride, and she quickly began in measured tone, as if in 
soliloquy, and alone, to quote Job’s record of satan’s 
joining the assembly of the sons of God : 

There was a day when the sons of God came to pre- 
sent themselves before the Lord^ and satan came also. 
And the Lord said whence earnest thoii ? Then satan 
said from going to and fro in the earth and from walk- 
ing up and down in it.” 

“ My wife responds to my penitence with bitterness ; 
but even the pagans were wiser. They ever took the 
gall from the animals offered to Juno, goddess of wed- 
lock.” 

Thy wife promised to be thy helpmate and give 
thee all she had. Now, just forget thy fine paganism, 
being a Christian long enough to remember that Tm 
thy helpmate in all things, even in bitterness. I give 
thee all, even returning thy giving.” 

Thou shouldst not make so much of my little mis- 
step.” 

“ Nothing is little with which one must constantly 
live. Great breaks grow from little fractures. One 
may stand a blow, but its the constant fretting that 
roughs the heart-strings to woe unendurable. Thou 
hast a habit of playfully hurting.” 

“ Well, this has been a day at school ; there ought to 
be a school for husbands ! We do not half understand 
the fine, sensitive creatures that companion us.” 

“Oh, thou thoLightst thou wert a woman-reader!” 

“Were I to see an angel with a body like a harp, 
eyes like the unsearchable ocean, heart of flame, arms 
lik? flowering vines, covered with prismatic wings. I’d 


A Battle of Giants at Bozrah, 231 

be no more puzzled and abashed than I am now by 
my high-strung, fine-tempered Rizpah.” 

“Puzzled! abashed! I’d help thee pity thy wounded 
conceit, but that I know that thou art soon to ascend. 
Art thou going now ! 

I’am afraid not, since I’ve so many more sins than 
graces. When elephants soar with butterfly .wings, 
thou mayst look for my departure. Till then I’ll stay 
here and practice the patience of Job, beset with his 
rambling devil.” 

“ How elegantly the cavalier uses simile in coining 
epithets.” 

“Heavens! Rizpah, thou dost twist my meanings ! 
Why distort, instead of pardoning my blunders, making 
both of us miserable ! ” 

“ Oh, then, thou hast grace enough not to liken me 
to thy besetting, evil spirit, at least in words? ” 

“No, no, ’tis refined cruelty to put me on the de- 
fense as to that. Believe it or not, Rizpah of Gerash 
and Rizpah of Bozrah are the same. My heart to its 
core says so ! ” 

This second quarrel, that should not have been be- 
gun, had the merit of ending, as it should, in reconcili- 
ation, tears, embraces and a great many excellent 
pledges. Yet Sir Charleroy did not greatly profit by 
the experience. He failed to perceive that these first 
breaks in the rythmic flow of conjugal love are great 
shocks to a deeply affectionate woman. He knew that 
men easily recover from rebuffs, and so did not stop to 
consider that young wife-hood was the highest expres- 
sion on earth of utter clinging to one sole support. 
He knew his own feelings and took them for the stand- 
ard. He set himself up ^s the pattern, quite uncon- 


232 The Queen of the House of David. 

sciously, perhaps ; and after the conflict in which he 
came off conceded victor, he was condescending in his 
manner. This was unfortunate. Rizpah did not need 
to be told that her husband was wiser and stronger 
willed and more self-possessed and more able to endure 
life’s trial than herself. All this she believed, abso- 
lutely, when she surrendered her heart to the man at 
the first. Woman-like, these were the very circum- 
stances that caused her to love him as she did. A 
woman never loves completely until her love is supple- 
mented by adoration. She must believe the man, who 
would make full conquest, is one to whom she can 
look up ; one some way her superior. But while a 
loving woman will give a devotion almost religious, she 
will be pained amid her delights of committal by a 
haunting fear that he whom she adores may rise away 
from her. In the very plenitude of her fullest love- 
worship she will deny the reverence, sometimes, in a 
seeming inconsistency, rebuff and even ridicule her 
idol. It is with her a sort of hysteria, a confession of 
secret terror, lest she and he grow apart in mind, and 
so come to part in body. Hence it is a giant cruelty 
on the part of a husband, sometimes, to enforce, or 
thrust forward, his size or his lordship. They may be 
facts, but God has set over against them as their equal 
that love which clings, stimulates and supplements, 
without which the finest man is far less than the half 
of the united twain. Sir Charleroy blundered along 
in his error ; Rizpah tried to be happy and failed. 
She did not know how to make the best of her sur- 
roundings, and Sir Charleroy did not know, because he 
did not seek religiously to find out how to help her 
make the best of them. They had some periods of 


A Battle of Giants at Bozrah. 


233 


pleasure, but they continually grew briefer and were 
more frequently interrupted as time went on. She was 
ill, he suffered himself to think her at times ill-tem- 
pered. As a lover, he admired her outbreaks as very 
brilliant, and flattered her by remarking that she had 
the metal of an Arabian steed ; as a husband, he thought 
her very disagreeable when pettish or angry. Indeed, 
though he never said so to her, he did say to himself that 
at times she was very like a virago. The only steed 
that came to his mind then was the ass, to which he 
likened himself when he considered himself the perfec- 
tion of submissive patience. 

A new event radically changed the picture and situ- 
ation in this troubled home. 

The prayer of prayers was heard in Bozrah ; the cry 
of a baby ; a bundle of needs and helplessness, with no 
language but a cry. Processions of silent centuries had 
passed through those halls since they echoed the hoarse 
voices of the brawny beings who built them. One 
could not hear the infant cry without remembering the 
contrasts. A baby ; a puny one at that, and of the 
gentler sex, besides being of a race pigmy compared to 
the stalwarts who builded those abodes. SirCharleroy 
and his consort had set up their household gods, and for 
a goodly period had occupied as theirs a Rephaim 
home. 

The little stranger came, though they did not discern 
it, with power to bless them both. A poetic visitor, 
happening on this baby’s hammock there and then, 
might have gone in raptures, to some truths, after this 
fashion : It will be the golden tie, angel of peace and 
hope, to the home ! ” The philosopher, seeing the 
little bundle of helplessness, might have said : Here 


234 Queen of the House of David. 

is a giant, the home is immortal through its offspring; 
the babe requiring so much, richly repays its loving 
care-takers by inducting them into the soul expansions 
of unselfish service.” But then poets and philosophers 
often miss the mark, attempting prophesy. 

The parents followed the usual course of those for 
the first time in that relation. Their love for each 
other, very intense, and by its sensitiveness witnessing 
after all that it was very selfish, got a new direction. 
They soon drifted into the charming fooleries of their 
like. Sometimes they petted the child unceasingly, 
and one was anon jealous of the other if surpassed in 
this. They each struggled for a recognition from the 
innocent, and debated as to whether the first babble of 
the little one was “mamma” or “papa.” Then there 
were times when they handled baby very rever- 
ently, as if it were something from God, or likely to 
break. 

At such times they each, in heart, thanked God and 
gave the child, at least in part, to Him. Sometimes 
they called it “Davidah” or “darling,” and laughed 
as they assured each other, to assure themselves, that 
the baby looked wise as if understanding. Sometimes 
they played with it as if they were children and it a 
toy; sometimes they ministered to it with anxious 
care, while all the time they felt quite sure it was some- 
how of finer mold and fiber than any babe before on 
earth. They were just like all for the first time par- 
ents, and their raptures were now for good, being cen- 
tered around the thought expressed by the sweet word 
home. Of course, the question of naming the child 
was discussed, and, of course, no name they could think 
of seemed quite good enough. Some days the child 


A Battle of Giants at Bozrah. 


235 


was given a dozen, and some days it had none ; for all 
the time they kept trying to fit it. 

In one thing, both parents were Jewish, namely, the 
desire to give their darling an appellation expressive 
of what it was or what they hoped it would be. They 
first agreed on Angela,” but that was discarded as 
being a sort of advertisement of the quality of their 
treasure. In the constant selfishness of love they 
would keep it all secretly, sacredly to themselves, they 
said. They sought for many days some significant 
token or name that should be fully expressive of their 
thought, and yet by the three only be ever fully under- 
stood. One day Rizpah, always abrupt, still nursing an 
old superstition, said : “ Call her Marah, a mournful, 
sweet, expressive title.” 

“ Why, wife, that means ‘ bitterness.’ ” 

Bitterness, since I believe that somewhere, some- 
how, there is bitterness enough in store for her — and 
me with her.” 

I’d prefer ‘ Mary,’ my wife ; surely this little angel 
is to be all like that blessed one.” 

Then there was more strife, but of a rather patient 
kind, which ended in a compromise, they calling the 
child Miriamne, each in mind meaning different from 
the other ; the one Marah, the other Mary. But on 
the heels of this came soon the graver problem. How 
should the babe be reared, in Jewish faith or Christian ? 
It was the old, old story of a difficulty seemingly easily 
adjusted to all, except to those who have actually met 
it, and in this case, as usual, the two parties fanatically 
opposed each other. In the name of sweet religion 
they loyally served the devil for a time. The highest 
^achievement of ^ creed or faith 13 fhe soothing and 


236 The Queen of the House of David. 

elevation of a home here, or the exalting of it heaven- 
ward for hereafter. That is a travesty of piety which 
wrecks the substance of joy for the shell of a dogma. 
This stricture is easily written and may pass without 
dissent, the reader immediately falling into the error 
denounced. Of course, as usual, these two parents 
began the discussion of the subject. At intervals they 
cautiously pressed their arguments, but each unwaver- 
ingly moved toward his or her point. They were like 
advancing armies, firing occasional shots, but surely 
approaching a mighty issue. They pretended to argue 
the matter by times, but it was a farce, for each in 
mind irrevocably had predetermined the conclusion. 
Time sped on a year or more, then 'the conflict fully 
came. 

Rizpah, we were wed by a Christian, let us take 
the fruit of that compact to Christian baptism.” 

“The first act was an error; we shall not atone for 
it by repetitions in kind ! The child is mine; I de- 
cline.” 

“ And mine, so I request.” 

“A mother imperils her whole life for her child, and 
unreservedly gives to it part of herself ; justice, hu- 
manity, should give the child to the mother, so far as 
may be.” 

“ But even under thy faith, I, the father, am the 
head of the house.” 

“Under my faith the nurture and training of chil- 
dren belong chiefly to the mother, and my faith has 
been the finest society-builder of the world in the past. 
Thou hast often recounted to me the deeds of that 
golden, heroic time of my people, when the great Mac- 
cabean family led us and inspired us. Well, then, the 


A Battle of Giants at Bozrah, 


237 


mothers had exclusive control of the daughters until 
they were wed, and so they had grand daughters among 
the Maccabees.” 

“ Well, we differ in belief; we had better compro- 
mise.” 

We dare not barter a little soul to do it.” 

‘‘Well, briefly then, being lord of this home, I com- 
mand that the grace-giving sacrament be sought for 
our Mary.” 

“ My faith, to which thou didst first appeal, forbids 
fathers to command their children to walk through 
idolatrous fires. Marah shall not.” 

“ Hush ; I only want the loved one inducted into 
the true faith.” 

“ Mine is the older and truer.” 

“ With thee argument is futile ; I insist ” 

“If the father is a foreigner, Jewry’s rule is that the 
children are to be called by the mother’s name and 
regarded as of her family. Make such law as thou 
choosest for thy family but not for mine.” 

“ I’ll end this,” cried Sir Charleroy, seizing the child, 
as if to hasten then to seek some priest’s ministry. 

Rizpah’s eyes glittered with sullen purpose. She 
sprang before him, and hissed : 

“Our fathers escaped at all cost from Egypt. I’ll 
not go back, nor Marah.” 

The knight was surprised, and his looks expressed it 
as he said : 

“ Dost thou rave ? ” 

“ Oh, no, I was just remembering that a bearded 
serpent was the Egyptian symbol of deity ; something 
like a man. You Christians would have all husbands 
gods to their families ! No bearded serpent for mine ! ” 


238 The Queen of the House of David, 

Heavens, woman ! thinkest thou thy scorn and vi- 
tuperation can stay me?” So saying he pushed, or 
rather half flung the woman from him. He had no 
conception of the rage that any thing like a blow 
evokes in the heart of a woman that could love as once 
did Rizpah. On his part it was intended as a master- 
piece of strategy, in the hope that the woman would 
swoon, then surrender in the weakness of following 
hysteria. The act was hateful to him, but he justified 
it by the end sought, yet missed that end. 

Rizpah was a tigress roused, and like many another 
mother, beast or human, when the fight is once for 
offspring was endowed with sudden, supernatural 
strength. She sprang toward the hammock, plucking 
her dagger meanwhile from its hiding-place. 

“ Heaven defend us, woman ! ” cried Sir Charleroy, 
glancing about for a means of prevention, “thou 
wouldst not do murder f ” 

“ Oh, no, thou art not fit to die ; but hear me ; this 
blade, consecrated to defense from dishonor, saved me 
once. Dost thou remember? It will do it again, if 
need be. The giver sleeps, but his stern charge haunts 
me still. * Protect at any cost from dishonor ! ’ ” 

“ Wouldst thou shed blood of any here ! ” 

“ Sir Charleroy saw me slay the Turk. Had I failed, 
thou falling, this blade would have found my own 
heart. Push me onward by thy imperiousness and I 
will slay the babe and then myself ! Methinks, it 
would be an atonement for which my parent would for- 
give my breaking of his heart. Ah, then sweet rest ; 
life’s tumults over! God would pity the tempest- 
tossed soul that, through such bitterness, flung itself 
on Him/' 


A Aatite of Ciants at Bozrah, 23^ 

^‘Dost mean all this, Rizpah?” 

“Can I trifle? Ask thyself. Have I ever? My 
desperate sincerity made me thy wife, but now it im- 
pels me to defy all thy attempts to make me thy min- 
ion, unthinking echo or slave ; or worse, the ruiner of 
that girl.” 

“Well, then, woman, since thou or I must yield and 
I can not, thou wilt not, I execute my before announced 
purpose to have my lawful authority acknowledged 
with thee or ” 

“Say the rest, find peace away from me 

“Which?” sternly demanded the knight. 

“As thou dost wish, only I’ll not give up my child 
to Christian sacrifice.” 

“ Then we can not live in peace together.” 

“To which I reply, that God never ordained mar- 
riage to bind people to the home when they can only 
for each other in that home make a very Tartarus ! ” 

The knight was humiliated. He had believed that 
the woman’s heart could not bear the thought of sepa- 
ration, and now to find her willing to give him up, 
rather than her will, her faith, hurt his pride. But 
they had made aji utter crossing of purposes. He ran 
out of their stone house, his heart as stony. A little 
way off he paused, looked back, and said, “ For the last 
time, Rizpah, what dost thou say?” 

“ Go ; once for love I gave up all. Again I do it ; I 
give thee up for the highest of all love, the love of a 
mother for her child ! ” 

Caressingly Rizpah embraced the infant, and then 
fell on her knees with her face averted from her hus- 
band. He took one glance, and realizing the defeat of 
his strong will by that kneeling woman, angrily hurried 


240 Queen of the House of David, 

away. The die was cast. He turned his back on Riz- 
pah, swearing that he would never more return. 

For a few days Rizpah lived in a crazy dream ; now 
laughing as she thought of her victory ; again letting 
her maiden love re-assert itself ; then assuring her heart 
that all was over and well as it was. But a woman who 
imagines that reproach or even open violence can ut- 
terly extirpate love that once completely possessed her, 
knows not her own heart. Especially is this true if to 
that heart, she at timesy press, lovinglyy a child begot- 
ten in that love, and the form bearing the impress of 
that man for whom sometime she would have willingly 
died. 

* * * * - 9 ^ * * 

One night the baby cried piteously, being ill, and 
Rizpah was feeling very lonely because so anxious for 
it. She had sometimes, since Sir Charleroy’s departure, 
prattled with the baby calling “ papa and “ Charle- 
roy,” mother-like, woman-like. Self-condemning, for 
this was a half confession that she would have the 
little one think, if it thought at all, that she, the 
mother, was not to blame for the absence. The baby 
had caught some names and in its moaning, feverishly 
cried : ‘‘Abbaroy, Abbaroy ; I want my Abbaroy.” The 
cry was piercing to the mother’s heart and conscience. 
She even then wished for the husband’s return. In- 
deed, some hot tears fell as she prayed God to send 
papa Charleroy back.” The tie of marriage, potent 
beyond all of earth, now drew her away toward the 
absent one, and she then began to marvel how easily 
they had separated ; how lightly they had regarded 
the bonds which after all tightly held them. When 


A Battle of Giants at Bozrdh, 2\i 

lives have blended and been tied together by other 
lives, it is indeed a prophesy of union “ until death do 
us apart.” 

“ Abbaroy, Abbaroy I I want my Abbaroy,” still 
piteously cried the sick child. The night without was 
raging ; the little lamp sent dancing shadows over the 
black walls of her room and an unutterable loneliness 
took possession of the woman. One by one thoughts 
like these arose ; “ Father dead, mother dead ; husband 
as good as dead ; perhaps really so, and my child like 
to die ! What if she should die thus crying for her 
father ! Oh, God spare me this ! I’d go mad by her 
corpse. “ Abbaroy, I want my Abbaroy,” sobbed the 
child in her sleep. The mother heard the waving 
palms without. Her vivid imagination turned them 
into persons, spirits. They seemed to be her dead an- 
cestors and they caught up the cry of her child rebuk- 
ingly “ Abbaroy, I want my Abbaroy.” She swooned 
now and slept. In the sleep there came a dream. She 
thought she saw her daughter, grown to woman- 
hood, but pale and sad. She had the hand of her 
mother and was drawing her toward the sea. When- 
ever the mother drew back the daughter wailed “Abba- 
roy, I want my Abbaroy.” Presently their feet touched 
the water edge, she saw a ship, floating at anchor, but 
with sails spread partly ; on its stern was the name, 
England y The captain stood by the vessel’s side, 
observing her. At last he cried: “Well, how long 
must we wait for thee?” A wave seemed to dash 
against her face and she awakened. The heavy win- 
dow blind of stone had swung open, the rain was beat- 
ing in on her. She started up and felt for her child, 
half fearfully lest a corpse should meet her touch. But 


^ 4 ^ The Queen of the House of David, 

she found her hands clasping a little form with fast 
beating heart and burning skin. The light had gone 
out, but there alone in that desolate home amid the 
ruins of past ages, the woman bowed in agonizing 
prayer. The balm of broken hearts was sought and 
she for a time was clothed and in her right mind. She 
arose, serenely, in the morning the cry of the sea cap- 
tain of her dream in her ears, and the firm resolve in 
her heart to seek her husband even in far-off England ; 
with him to try for the things that make for peace. 
Then she opened the iron-bound chest that had come 
to her from her father and took therefrom a roll of the 
‘ Kethrubim ’ and read. And it so happened that seek- 
ing to refresh her mind as to the story of how the 
giant Sampson got honey out of the slain lion’s car- 
cass, that she might more fully apply the meaning to 
her own experience, she came to the story of his birth. 
That story fixed her attention for days. It was like a 
new revelation to her. And she read and read these 
words over and over : 

“ And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the 
Danites, whose name was Manoah. 

And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the 
woman, and said unto her. Behold now, thou shalt con- 
ceive and bear a son. 

“ Then the woman came and told her husband, say- 
ing, A man of God came unto me, and his counte- 
nance was like an angel of God, and he said unto me. 
Behold thou shalt bear a son. 

“ Then Manoah entreated the Lord and said, O my 
Lord, let the man of God which thou didst send come 
again unto us, and teach us what we shall do unto the 
child. 


A Battle of (Giants at Bozrah, 

And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah ; and 
the angel of God came again unto the woman. 

“ And the woman made haste, and ran, and shewed 
her husband. 

“ And Manoah arose, and went after his wife and 
came to the man. 

“ And Manoah said. Now let thy words come to 
pass. How shall we order the child, and how s\i2i\\ we 
do unto him ? 

“ And the angel of the Lord said unto Manoah, Of 
all that I said unto the woman let her beware. 

“ So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and 
offered it upon a rock unto the Lord : and the angel 
did wondrously ; and Manoah and his wife looked on. 

“ For it came to pass, when the flame went up to- 
ward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the 
Lord ascended in the flame of the altar: and Manoah 
and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the 
ground.” 

And as Rizpah read, little by little, the truth and 
beauty of the scene and its words dawned upon her. 
Thusshe meditated: This is the way God brought 

forth His giant deliverer, Samson ; God appeared to the 
woman first, but she hasted to tell of the promised 
blessing to her husband. When she thought of how 
that angel-led wife led her husband, she remembered 
her own fanatical bitterness and was condemned. 
Then she remembered how Manoah and his wife, 
together, asked how they should order their child and 
how, as together they bowed before the Spirit, he 
ascended in glory over them. “ Oh,” she moaned 
within herself, “ if we had only put aside our differ- 
ences and, forgetting all else, just so sought together 


^44 Queen of the House of David. 

the Divine directings ! It was evening as she medi- 
tated, and she said within herself ; If ever I can get 
nigh Sir Charleroy’s heart I’ll tell him all this, and be- 
fore the altar of a new consecration we’ll give our- 
selves and ours to God^ just this way.” There came a 
wondrous joy to her heart and the palms that seemed 
to moan rebukingly without that other night, “ Abba- 
roy, Abbaroy, I want my Abbaroy,” this ni^ht 
reminded her some way vaguely of the beating of 
mighty wings, approaching nearer and nearer. She 
felt no longer rage, as she thought about the often be- 
praised Mary of her husband, but on the other hand^ 
wished she knew more about her, were more like her. 
It was the woman in her, yearning for a mother. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


RIZPAH, THE ANCIENT “MOTHER OF SORROWS." 

‘‘ Oh say to mothers, what a holy charge 
Is theirs ! With what a queenly power, their love 
Can rule the fountain of a new-born mind. 

Warn them to wake at early dawn and sow 
Good seed before the world has sown its tares ; 

Nor in their toil decline, that angel bands 
May put their sickles in and reap for God 
And gather in his garner.” 



EARLY a score of years passed away, each 
having wrought its changes, and Rizpah de 
Griffin is dwelling quietly with her three 
children at Bozrah. She is companionless 
though not a widow. Care has left its stern impress on 
her every feature ; the roses have gone from her cheeks 
and the snows that tarry, baffling all springs, are on 
her head. But time that has worn has also ripened. 
Rizpah has become a self-possessed, stately matron ; 
her form is erect, her eye as bright as ever. Bozrah 
has not changed ; the city sits in its sullen, fixed 
gloom, seemingly unconscious of the ravages that 
time works elsewhere. But there have been changes 
and changes among the people since first the woman 
of Gerash arrived there. Many former inhabitants have 
wandered away ; some to be swallowed up by the tides 
of peoples of other climes ; some have gone to judg- 
ment. But new comers have taken the places of those 



246 The Queen of the House of David. 

that had departed and speeded the swift enough for- 
getting of the absent ones. Rizpah was in high honor, 
for although she lived in seclusion, mixing very little 
with any of the people about her, all respected her. 
Hers was a well-ordered house; Druses, Turks and 
Hebrews joined in affirming this. . She ruled her child- 
ren firmly and they obeyed her implicitly, for they loved 
her loyally. We meet her now amid active prepara- 
tion for the observance of the approaching Jewish Sab- 
bath. With her are two boys, twins, born in London, 
as like each other as could be, and Miriamne. The lat- 
ter is in the full possession of her roses, and in the en- 
joyment of that splendor of personal charm seemingly 
belonging to all the maidens of Abrahamic descent 
under “ the covenant of the stars and the sand." For 
are not Israel’s women not only plenteous and bright 
and lofty like the stars, and her men numberless, rugged 
and restless as the surf-washed sands on every shore ? 
Does not this race, in all history, continually attest the 
persistence and pre-eminence of all good to those who 
walk under the Divine covenants? 

Miriamne not only is seen to possess a gracefulness 
like unto that of the palm, nature’s pattern of beauty 
in the East, but she has such robustness of form as might 
be expected in one born of such a Hebrew mother and 
such a Saxon father. In her temper, poetic, emotional, 
oriental, like her mother; in feature and mind more 
like her father ; she was a better, more evenly balanced 
result than either. It often so happens ; the child by 
some natural selection or some mercifulness, inheriting 
a character, the resultant of the union of two sets of 
parental forces, yet finer than either apart. The scien- 
tific man in such cases will say, herein we behold, in a 


Rizpah^ the Ancient '"'‘Mother of Sorrows A 247 

new being, physical and spiritual forces in action, the 
latter gaining the advantage ; a prophesy without 
mystery that at last the fittest only shall survive. The 
theologian, on the other hand, will see Providence elect- 
ing the best and preparing choice characteristics for 
superior works to be done. 

At a call of the mother, the children gathered about 
her, and the group was charming; a picture full of ex- 
pression and contrasts. The matro-n cast a look of 
yearning affection upon her offsprings, and the emotion 
possessed her until the hard face-lines faded into a sweet 
smile. Just then she would have been a satisfactory 
model for an artist painting Madonna. Thank God, 
children, the emblem of rest and of hope in* ages to 
come is at hand. I have joyed to-day, in full prepara- 
tion that this next Sabbath may be piously and earn- 
estly celebrated with all the religious exactness of our 
people.” Then, patting the boys on their heads with 
playful tenderness, she continued : “ Run away now up 
to the synagogue-ruin on the hill. Don’t forget your 
duty in play, lads ; be true little Israelites ! When ye 
see the sun go down back of Gilead’s mountains, give 
us warning of the Sabbath’s beginning. Now mind, 
I 3ep your eyes toward Jerusalem.” 

The lads sped away, and Rizpah following them with 
her eyes prayed in heart : “ God bless them, and though 
in this place of desolation, make them little Samuels 
in faith and service.” A little after her face glowed 
with triumphant joy, for there came back to her ears 
the boys’ voices, mingling in sacred song. It was the 
psalm of the “ Captives’ Return ” that they sang. The 
declining sun began to throw its last rays through the 
open windows of the huge stone home, flooding the 


248 The Queen of the House of David, 

black basalt walls and pavement with golden tints 
Slowly the mother’s eyes wandered from the scene 
without to objects within, until they rested on a huge 
painting that covered nearly half the opposite wall. One 
glance and her whole being seemed transformed. In 
an instant her reverential and weary attitude was 
changed to one of excited attention. She grew pale, 
her body swayed with a waving motion, suggestive of 
the panther creeping toward a victim. Then her form 
became rigid like one preparing for some great muscu- 
lar effort, or endeavoring to suppress some inner tem- 
pest. Her face, made habitually calm by the school- 
ings of adversity, became a theater for expression of the 
changing emotion within ; the mouth-lines putting on 
a firmness almost hideous ; her eyes glittered like a 
serpent’s in the act of charming ; contrasting with the 
forehead that shone like a silver shield. She was as 
one under a spell or in a trance ; but for a few moments 
only. There came a light footfall ; then a quick, half 
frightened, piteous cry and Miriamne stood beside her. 

Oh, mother, don’t! mother, mother; thou dost ter- 
rify me 1 ” The young woman stopped half way between 
the open door and her parent. Now she was passing 
through a great transition. She had seen all that was 
happening, often before ; had often run away from the 
spectacle to hide it from herself. Now she was trying 
to nerve herself to peqetrate the mystery in the hope 
of preventing its painfulnesss. She was at the turning 
point, where a girl changes to the woman within the 
circle of parental influences. 

But so complete was the absorption of the one gaz- 
ing upon the spectacle upon the wall, at first the cry 
)vas unheeded. In a sort of sudden, trembling desper- 


Rizpahy the Ancient Mother of Sorrozvs,** 249 

ation the young woman quickly bounded between 
her mother and the picture. Then, as if realizing the 
unfilial imprudence of the act, but still unwilling to 
recede from efforts to break the spell that bound her 
parent, she fell upon her knees before the seeming dev- 
otee and burst into tears. The mother started up a 
little as one awakening from a dream ; then said, with 
perfect control of voice and manner ; “ Marah, what 
ails thee? Art ill? Are the Bedouin coming?" 

No, no," replied the other; “the picture; the 
. picture ! " 

“ What is it child ? " 

“ I do not know. I only know that your strange, 
wild gaze upon its hideous group terrifies me! For 
years I’ve learned to feel a mingled disgust and 
fright in the presence of the woman in that pre» 
sentment. When I came in, your face looked like 
hers. You did not seem to be my own tender mother, 
but an angry virago. Oh, why do you shadow all our 
Sabbath eves, by this mysterious, cruel staring and 
moaning before this imagery of death ? You’ve made 
me to dread the approaching Holy- Day, promise of all 
delight to our people, as the advent of all pain to us," 

“ Marah, this is wickedness in thee. Thou shouldst 
learn to wrap thy soul about with the joys thou knowest, 
and leave all this that thou dost not understand, most 
likely terrible to thee chiefly because thou dost not 
understand it, to go its way.’' 

“ I’ve tried and tried for months to reason thus ; but 
how little comfort to be saying over and over, ' it’s 
all right,’ ' its nothing,’ to a fear that stops the very 
beatings of the heart. Oh, that I could fly from this 
land of desolations, Its loneliness and shadows keep 


250 The Queen of the House of David. 

coming and coming around me until I dread, lest they 
enter my very being and become part of me. I’ve leaned 
hitherto alone on my mother’s greater strength for 
rest. If I come to fear her, I’ll lose my reason ! ” 

“ Marah,” said the mother, with enforced calmness, 
** thou art feverish to-day ; thou hast wrought too much. 
Now retire and say this pillow Psalm ; ‘ He that dwel- 
leth in the secret place of the Most High^ abideth under 
the shadow of the Almighty.' Thou’lt be peaceful in 
the morning ; as are those ever who abide under the 
shadow of the King.” 

But only the more passionately the daughter clung to 
her mother, and again she renewed her plaint : “ Ah, 
mother, I have’nt strength to take these promises ! Oh^ 
forgive me, I can not help it ; I feel as if something 
awful were impending ; something coming between us! 
A curse is on this land. Is it any way over the De- 
Griffins ? Tell me, I beseech you, what is that painted 
thing? Sometimes I run out of the room when 
alone, as if those men hanging there were still alive, in 
death’s agony. I’ve dreamed sometimes that they 
came down in bodily form charging you and me with 
murdering them ; and when I go out at evening, I im- 
agine that the Ismaelitish woman in the foreground is 
flitting about my path, while in every thicket I hear 
the flapping wings of her carrion birds. Oh, mother! 
let us tear down that sole defilement of our own 
little, only home, and give it to the pilgrim Rabbi, 
now in Bozrah, that he may burn it with exorcising 
rites.” 

“Then thou thinkest there’s witchery hereabouts, 
Marah,” said the mother, severely. 

“ I ? I do not know what I think, beyond this, that 



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Rizpah^ the Ancient '■'■Mother of Sorrows** 251 

I’m overcome, terrified, made miserable, and you, under 
some spell for a time, cease to be my mother.” 

“ My daughter profanes her faith by permitting un- 
reined imaginations to rule her so.” 

“ Oh, tell me all about this hateful thing ! Why it so 
moves you. You said long ago you would when I was 
able to bear it. I am no longer a child. Mother, you 
say you read me like an open book, now look into my 
heart and see that it is bursting with fright and worry ! 
You say you know woman’s nature ; if so, you know 
that I can suffer when I understand, but shall go mad 
in the suspense of constant fear of some threatening ill 
unseen.” Thus speaking and clinging to her mother, 
with a twining, almost desperate embrace, such as 
among women implies unerringly that a supreme mo- 
ment and demand has fallen upon the questioner, she 
burst forth in tearless sobs. The mother’s face was a 
study and told of a succession of weighty thoughts ; 
parental authority brooked ; infringed ; new surprised 
realization that the daughter was no longer a child, but 
a wise, earnest woman. Then there was a degree of 
fearfulness springing from deep love. The elder wo- 
man perceived the crisis, and knew full well that in such 
times denials to a woman meant a dead heart, or worse. 
Then her manner softened, and drawing her child to 
her bosom with an embrace passionate in fervor, she 
tenderly, soothingly spoke to her: 

“ My most dearly beloved Marah ! dismiss all thy 
fears at once and forever. They are needless. Rest, 
now and always, as thou never canst elsewhere, in all 
the world, upon this heart of mine. Rest thou in thy 
present young womanhood, as calmly, as trustingly, as 
thou didst in baby-hood. That heart guarded thee 


252 The Queen of the House of David, 

more tenderly than its own life then, through storms 
within and without that nearly broke it. In part thou 
dost know this ; remembering what it has been in 
loyalty to God and thyself, canst thou pain it by one 
distrusting thought now ? ” 

“ Oh, mother, I know, I know ; I do not mean to 
doubt you, and I remember, with a gratitude beyond 
all my poor power of speech, your toiling, patient, 
constant, loving care for me and my brothers. I never 
can forget that you are a Hebrew indeed, proud to 
emulate the noble mothers of our nation in its olden, 
golden days; but after all I must think. I think, 
sometimes, with anguish, that that awful picture may 
some way come between us ! ” 

Why, Marah, impossible ! thou art my other self ; 
a fairer copy ; as I was at thy age.” Then Rizpah spoke 
in unusual, confiding tenderness: “We mothers have 
our vanities and take a secret pride in wearing our 
daughters on our hearts as precious jewels. When 
nature gratifies that pride by giving us daughters in 
form, features and mind, mirrors or glad reminders of 
ourselves, as we were in the days of young beauty, 
romancings and hopes, we hug these in our souls in a 
way thou canst never realize until thou hast been such a 
mother. Change ? I change toward thee ? Ah, girl, 
not being a mother, thou canst not begin to fathom 
the ocean-depth, the heaven-height, the eternity-like 
unchanging endurance of a woman’s love, once it has 
been quickened into the channels of maternal affection. 
Thou art a woman to all the world, but not so to me. 
I love thee now as I loved thee when thou wert a 
babe. To me thou wilt always be a little, lovely, 
needy creature — an angel touching the fountains of 


Rizpahy the Ancient Mother of Sorrows y 253 

my inmost nature. All earthly friendships change ; 
lover’s love, at first fierce, generally dies as the tides of 
years roll over it ; but, mother-love, in all loving, is the 
exception. Believe this as thou dost believe the ten- 
ets of our faith and thou’Il find thy troubling thoughts 
fleeing away like mists of Hermon, before the conquer- 
ing banners of the morning.” There followed a pro- 
longed embrace and a mutual kiss ; impassioned, affec- 
tionate ; an action expressing volumes to one skilled 
in interpreting the signs, all unvoiced and unwritten, 
yet, by some constant intuition, known to all woman- 
kind as the language of the finest, sincerest loving. 
That moment these two women passed onward, up- 
ward together to a higher, lighter, stronger relation- 
ship than they had enjoyed before. They entered the 
temple where daughter and mother begin the feast of 
the new revelation ; when to the love of parent and 
child is added that of real companionship. That is a 
sunny, fruity hour, when a girl is received as a woman 
by a woman ; that woman her mother. 

The two sat embracing and happy for a long time ; 
but the old pain suddenly revived — Miriamne’s eyes 
chancing to stray to the picture. She shuddered, then 
looked pleadingly into her parent’s eyes. The mother, 
quickly interpreting the look, tenderly replied : “ Some- 
time.” 

“ No, oh, no ; tell me, mother, all, now ! Who, 
and what are those hanging forms ; the horror-frighted, 
bludgeon-armed woman ; the birds of black, hovering 
over the crosses ? Oh ! my mother, you trust me ; now 
tell me all or tear that down ! You know it’s not lawful 
for us Jews to have any image of things in Hades.” 

The last words moved the mother more than all else 


254 Queen of the House of David, 

that Miriamne had hitherto spoken. Heresy, she 
abominated ; and the chief aim of her life had been to 
make her children true Israelites by precept and ex- 
ample. To her thinking, Israel alone was right ; all 
others were heathen, to whom was reserved perdition. 
To an apostate, in her belief, there came a final judg- 
ment of misery, beggaring all attempt at description. 
A little while she hesitated, and then came to quick 
resolve to tell her daughter all. She arose, walked 
rapidly back and forth over the stone floor of the 
abode, and, then stopping before the daughter, said : 
“Thy wish shall be granted. In love of thee, for lo, 
these many years Tve hidden from thee one miserable 
and dark chapter of our family history. I have drank 
the bitter waters alone. But too much I love thee to 
bear the piteous appeal of thy lips, or the look of 
doubt that sometimes flits in thy questioning eyes. 
Canst thou bear knowledge that is full of bitterness?” 

“ Yea, mother,” said Miriamne, there is no bitterness 
in reality like that our imaginations conjure up, when 
fed by mysteries that hang on pictures of such hideous 
mien ” 

“ Thou dost force me to the explanation, but, daugh- 
ter blame me not, if, like Saul of old, who fainted at 
the sight he compelled Endor’s witch to reveal, thou 
art given now some knowledge that kills thy sunshine.” 

“ I’m the daughter of Rizpah and Sir Charleroy. Did 
they either of them ever fear?” 

“ Ah ! but I have been the very mother of sorrows, 
ever since thy birth, child. God knows it ; and it 
were best to leave it all to Him alone.” 

“ But, mother. I’d gladly share your sorrows. Sor- 
row shared is ever lightened by the sharing. Let us 


Rizpah, the Ancient “ Mother of Sorrows!' 255 


bear the corpse between us, and in this lonely life we 
shall be made more than ever companions, through a 
common grief.” 

“ So be it then. Thou shalt know all.” 

And Rizpah, going to a seldom-used iron-bound 
chest, drew therefrom a parchment roll ; handing the 
same to her daughter, she said : “ Read. It’s part of 
Father Harrimai’s ' Kethubim! ” The place opened to 
the story of the famine in David’s time, which endured 
three years, because of wrongs done to the Gibeonites 
by the children of Israel. As Miriamne read onward, 
Rizpah from time to time gave explanations: 

Dost perceive, daughter, that Jehovah, though 
not revengeful, is a God of recompenses?” 

“ He was the friend of the Gibeonites though they 
were not of his chosen people ; because they had no 
other friend, I think,” said Miriamne. 

“Yes, and He held all Israel responsible for what 
they were willing to let their blood-thirsty Saul per- 
form. As he had been, so had been the people ; they 
were guilty, and God needed to punish them. How 
just ! Oh ! God is sure to press men to a conclusion. 
Read what David said to the stranger Gibeonites ; ” 
Miriamne continued: 

“ And he said, what ye shall say, that will I do for 
you. 

''And they answered the king, the man that con- 
sumed us, and that devised against us ; 

“ Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and 
we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah. 

''And the king said, I will give them. 

'' But the king spared Mephibpseth, the son of Jon- 
athan sop of Saul. 


256 


The Queen of the House of David, 


** But the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the 
daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni 
and Mephiboseth ; and the five sons of Michal the 
daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel. 

“And he delivered them into the hands of the Gib- 
eonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the 
Lord : and they fell all seven together, and were put to 
death in the beginning of barley harvest.” 

Miramne paused; then addressed her parent: 

“ Mother, I'd not be an heretic, and yet I can not see 
the justice of hanging the sons for the father’s sins ? ” 

“Perhaps they were parties to the murder ; perhaps 
publicly, or in heart, defended it. At any rate, from 
the beginning it has been so. Thou and thy brothers 
are living here fatherless on account of him that begat 
you ” 

“ Shall I stop reading this bloody story?” quoth 
Miriamne. 

“ It pains thee. Thou must go on now, though thou 
shouldst fall fainting, as Saul at Endor. Read.” 

The daughter complied, and with quickly revived in- 
terest, for she came to the name “ Rizpah ” the second 
time, but before she had not noticed it in reading. 

“ And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth 
and spread it for her upon the rock, from the begin- 
ning of harvest until water dropped upon them out 
of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to 
rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by 
night. 

“ And it was told David what Rizpah, the daughter 
of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. 

“ And David went and took the bones of Saul 
and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the men of 


Rizpah^ the Ancient “ Mother of Sorrows f 257 

Jabesh-gilead, which had stolen them from the street 
of Beth-shan. 

“ And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul 
and the bones of Jonathan his son ; and they gathered 
the bones of them that were hanged. 

“And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son 
buried they in the country of Benjamin, in Zelah, in 
the sepulcher of Kish, his father : and they performed 
all that the king commanded. And after that God 
was entreated for the land.” 

When the last clause was finished, Miriamne cast a 
glance at the huge painting on the wall. 

“ I understand in part ; that is Rizpah and her cruci- 
fied children ? ” 

“ It is well, daughter. Behold her ; this is mother- 
hood of strongest type ! Humanity is no where per- 
fect, but of all the erring ones of life, I most believe in 
those, who, among many perversions of judgment and 
blemishes of character, have some one or more of lofty 
virtues. Methinks a soul may be drenched by many 
sins, and yet, if within its very core it carry sincerely 
and sacred as its life some noble, dominating passion, 
like the holy love of parent for a child, that soul will 
ever have thereby a gate open to the Holy Spirit, a 
handle for the grasp of saving angels, and, while life 
lasts, an ever-flying signal lifted toward heaven. Such 
prayer unspoken is a beseeching, not vainly for the in- 
terceding love of Him that weighs the spirits.” 

“ But, mother, you’re not such a tigress? Not like 
that woman ?” 

“ How proud I’d be to be indeed all she was. The 
exact interpretation of * Rizpah ’ is a ‘ living coal,’ but 
her name interpreted by her life is better called the 


258 The Queen of the House of David, 

* flaming beacon.’ We mutually lament the dispersion 
of our people ! Dost thou remember how last Sab- 
bath thou vvepst while thou didst read to me the words 
of the blessed Isaiah foretelling the long-delayed but 
Divinely-promised regathering of all our tribes ? ” 

“ Oh ! that the hills of Judea would glow with the 
beacons of that day ! ” 

‘‘Daughter, God’s beacons are chiefly noble spirits, 
such as Moses of the Exode, Samson, the giant, David, 
Nehemiah and Cyrus. The world has not yet inter- 
preted Rizpah, the ‘ burning coal,’ the beacon fire. 
Once I was frail, timorous, wavering, but devotion to 
that character has transformed me. When the world’s 
mothers look to her pattern, there will be a new order 
of motherhood ; then look for heroic men and an heroic 
age!” 

“ But was not Rizpah a Hivite, a descendant of 
Ham, and so of those forever under God’s curse?” 

“ My child, ancestry is not always the test of worth. 
The consequences of sin may pass down from sire to 
son, but never so as to bar the way to hope, nor dam 
up the stream of ever-pitying mercy of heaven. Riz- 
pah had some true Jewish blood within her heart, and 
in the long run God’s providence doth work to make 
the better part, of admixed good and ill, dominate. Be- 
sides all this, the lovely Ruth, thou dost emulate so well, 
was foreign to our people. So, too, was Rahab ; and our 
Rabbis tell us she was in the royal line of David, from 
which at last the Messiah shall arise. Those women, 
with Rizpah, were beacons to the world ! While man- 
kind revere true love, constancy, loyalty and faith, 
those names will be remembered.” 

“ But, mother, Rizpah was the concubine of Saul, 


Rizpah^ the Ancient '‘^Mother of Sorrows!' 259 

and as I think of how you oft denounce the harems of 
our neighboring Bedawin, my very soul blushes at hear- 
ing you admire this woman so.” 

“ Ah, daughter, methinks she was more sinned against 
than sinning. Recall the unequal struggle : Rizpah, a 
foreigner, of a nation subdued by kingly Saul ; he a 
man, strong of mind, a king, hedged with a sort of 
divinity that in the minds of the simple ever hedges 
kings about ; making their words and deeds seem 
always right and just. If women made the laws and 
customs there never would have been known on earth 
unclean polygamy, but ever instead thereof the union 
only, in holy wedlock, of two lives, mutually conse- 
crated, serviceful and constant. Under wrong teach- 
ing and tyranny, a woman may do that which purer 
societies condemn, and yet retain a conscience white 
and clean before God. 

“Within that book of Samuel, which I hold, it is re- 
corded that Ishbosheth, a son of Saul, who for a time 
reigned in a rebellious confederacy, a horseman’s day’s 
journey from here, at Mahanaim, charged Rizpah once 
with an act of impurity. 

“ The record makes no mention of Rizpah’s reply. 
Like thousands of women before and since her time, 
she was defenseless against slander. Men, the stronger, 
may malign without evidence, and often it doth out- 
weigh, to ears ripe to feast upon the carrion of a scandal, 
the indignant denial of outraged purity, accompanied 
even with evidences which make the thought of crime 
upon the part of the one belied, seemingly an impossi- 
bility. But leave all that ; I appeal in behalf of my re- 
vered Rizpah to her wondrous loyalty as a mother. Tell 
rpe not that this sublimelj^ heroic woman, who patientlj/- 


26 o The Queen of the House of David, 

watched the corpses of her sons and other kin from 
April, through all the lonely nights and through all 
those burning days, until October rains wept them to 
their burial, ever did an act that could let loose upon 
them living or dead the hounds of scandal ! They may 
have suffered death as malefactors, in God’s sight, but 
still her mother-love clung to them. She who kept 
those long vigils, lest beast or bird of prey should harm 
or mar or pollute the bodies precious to her if to no 
one else, I am assured, beyond all cavil, never did 
aught that could have stung their brows or embittered 
their hearts ! Such motherly devotion as hers doth 
fully purify a woman. He who planned society, with 
its sacred foundations resting so largely on the integrity 
of its child-bearers, has planted in the bosom of woman 
this all-possessing love of her offspring, as her safe- 
guard. It’s her wall of fire by day and by night, and 
verily more restraining to her than any law of man, 
command of God, or fear of hell ! ” 

** And are loving mothers never unchaste ? ” 

“The Jews hated swine and the monster deities of 
Chaldeans, because both destroyed their young, and 
our holy Talmudists declare that Mary of the Chris- 
tians, not being as pure as the Nazarene’s followers 
affirm, is doomed to bide even in lowest Hades with 
the bar of hell’s gate through her ear. No, I, as a 
Jewish woman, believe that one of my sex being a 
mother and impure is neither loving, nor a woman ! ” 

“ How I revere the noble sentiments of Rizpah of 
Bozrah ! ” 

“ For all I am, after God, praise that ancient, fervent 
beacon, Rizpah of Gibeah ! ” 

“ I am in part reconciled to her, but yet I wish, in 


Rizpah^ the Ancient ^''Mother of Sorrow 261 

frightened agony often, that you would renounce this 
historic Rizpah ; lioness-like in her devotion to her off- 
spring, but full of murderous fury toward any that 
crossed her love. Our holy book must have sweeter, 
nobler ideals for our inspiration.” 

I judge this Hebrew heroine mother by her in- 
fluence upon me, and that has been for good. The 
hypocrite or romancer may call the passer-by to prayer 
and have no more soul in it than the Moslem trumpet. 
Only those who have some God-like saintliness of 
character, can win effectually, unceasingly. There is 
mighty power in the unspoken sermons of such a life. 
/ cherish Rizpah, whose touch of moral power, coming 
where and when I was weak to callowness, girded me 
with purpose for wavering and thews of steel for rosy 
softness. I was once like thee, a fragile flower, but the 
example of that patient woman’s heroism, ever before 
me, has fitted me to meet my awful trials and worthily 
inhabit this giant-built house. Thou dost remember, 
Miriamne, at last Passover time thou wished, as thou 
didst read to me of Jacob, that even now a ladder with 
communicating angels might be set up from earth to 
heaven ? ” 

“Ah, that would be a feast; angels in burning 
bushes, or by fountains as in Hagar’s time ! I often 
worship in the thicket and pray for heaven’s messen- 
gers from Paradise to fan the flames of our devotion, 
as Gabriel did the orisons of Daniel. But I’d be afraid 
to meet an angel like your Rizpah.” 

“Not so with me, Marah. Indeed, I often think of 
Rizpah and Jacob together. Thou rememberest how, 
not far away, at Mahanaim, Jacob of old met a host of 
angels ? They came to cheer him in an hour of sad 


262 The Queen of the House of David, 

depression, the saddest kind indeed ; for in that hour 
he remembered amid his repentings that he was soon 
to face the brother whom long years before he had 
wronged. Well, when Rizpah, by the death of Saul, 
was released from that domineering madman-king, 
she made her home at Mahanaim,the place near which 
Jacob counseled with the angels. Methinks she there 
also communed with the spirits that do excel in strength. 
She may have been weak before, but in that angel 
school she outgrew her master. Ay, my child, it is 
marvelous how a woman rises under the impulses of a 
noble love, holy companionship and plenty of sorrow. 
Many a male brute has flattered himself he was crush- 
ing into fawning servitude by his imperious, selfish will, 
his weaker child-burdened mate, only some day to find 
the victim asserting her individuality with power un- 
earthly. The partridge skulks, terrified amid lowly 
grasses from the hunter, little by little gathering cour- 
age for her pinions, then she suddenly departs to 
return no more, meanwhile luring the hunter from her 
treasures.” 

That is, an abused wife should run away?” 

‘‘Oh, perhaps not; but she may rise above her 
tyrant.” 

“ I can’t but remember the woman’s rough strength.” 

“To me the all-controlling love of Rizpah for her 
children condones her former errings, her Philistine 
ancestry, her craggedness. I believe she soars with the 
angels now, and to Israel she must be a pattern until 
some more saintly and finer woman arises to take the 
leadership of woman.” 

“ Will such an one appear, mother?” 

God’s dial is a circle, with a sweep like eternity. 


Rizpak, the Ancient Mother of Sorrows 265 

He knows no hurry ; yet, though never weary, is never 
belated. We are not waiting for him, but He is for us. 
When man is ready to take up his pilgrim march to the 
highlands of a living, all light, all beautiful, there’ll be 
beacons and beacons from the valleys to the hills.” 

Just then the lamp by which they had been sitting, 
for some time having only flickered, was suddenly 
quenched, and there was a sound of the fluttering of 
wings in the room. Mariamne screamed and clung to 
her mother, her thoughts on the vultures of the picture. 

“ ’Twas only a bat, daughter ! ” 

“ Oh, this ghostly place ! ” the young woman cried. 

“ Ghosts and bats are very harmless ; would men 
were like them ! ” bitterly spoke Rizpah. 

“ A bat putting out our light ; it’s like an omen ! ” 
Yes, wrongs do put out the light of human joy, but 
only for a little while ; look out to the firmanent, my 
clinging other self, as I do, for comfort by times. See, 
the stars are immovable ; all bright and in seemingly 
everlasting calm. Never forget in any long trial, or 
sudden terror, that when our human-made lights expire 
we are to turn our eyes toward heaven. In truth, God 
Himself often quenches our lights to make us look up 
to His.” The mother, approaching the stone case- 
ment, and looking out on the sky, continued : “The 
heavens are full of beacons and lamps. They shall 
light us to bed as His truth lights those who will to 
serene, long rest. Good night, my child.” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE QUEEN PROCLAIMED IN THE GIANT CITY. 

“ Half-hearted, false-hearted ! Heed we the warning ! 

Only the whole can be perfectly true ; 

Bring the whole offering, all timid thought scorning, 
True-hearted only if whole-hearted too.” 

— Havergal. 

NOTHER Passover season was at hand, and 
I the few Israelites in and about Bozrah, not 
being permitted to celebrate the feast, at 

Jl Jerusalem were gathering for a “Little 

Passover ” at the Giant City. There was sadness, mur- 
murings and fears in the hearts of the people. Sad- 
ness in remembering the decadence of Israel ; fears, for 
there were Mamelukes hovering threateningly in large 
numbers near the city; murmurings, because fault- 
findings, the last stage to indifference, flourish when 
religion is decaying. Faith and doubt waged their 
eternal battle ; and at Bozrah, doubt appealing to pres- 
ent facts, had the easier part against faith, appealing 
to past providences or unseen hopes. There was 
clamor for a change, but the leaders of the people were 
purblind to any new light. They crushed their own 
secret doubts and continued to enforce what they be- 
lieved, because they had believed it. They felt a sense 
of responsibility, and that made them very conserva- 
tive. Before the sun had reached high-noon Bozrah 



The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant City, 265 

was all astir. There were but two principal streets 
in the city ; these ran by the four great points of the 
compass and crossed at its center. Two companies of 
Jews of very different make-up, each moving along one 
of those streets, met, and, in passing, quite accidentally, 
the two processions formed a cross. One of the com- 
panies was made up of priests and serious old men, the 
true elders of the people. They tried to appear very 
wise and very pious, and succeeded. They tried as well 
to cheer and comfort all, and did not succeed very well. 
The other company was made up of young Israelitish 
men. They were going eastward ; the old men walked 
northward, away from the sun, now a little more than 
southeast. By the side of the elders glided a row of 
shadows of their own making. But they were as 
unconscious of these as of the shadows their musty 
traditions flung over the people. 

The youths felt like singing, so they sang. The 
sadness that was so general was not very deep with 
them. They would have liked to have sung a sort 
of convivial song; but, that being forbidden, they com- 
promised with their consciences and the situation 
by singing the one hundred and twenty-second Psalm, 
with the vigor of a madrigal. They had a surplus- 
age of vitality, and they let it flow out in the pious 
canticle. Certainly they conserved outward propriety ; 
as to their inward feelings, they themselves hardly 
knew what they were; hence, it would be unjust, 
for one without, to pass judgment. The Psalm was 
appointed to be sung at this feast. They say the return- 
ing captives, coming from Babylon, centuries before, 
sang this song as they ascended to a sight of Jeru- 
salem. 


266 The Queen of the House of David. 

Now, some of the elders had come to think it piety 
to morbidly nurse their sorrows. They were never 
happy except when they were miserable. One of these 
paused and addressed the young singers : 

“Children, cease. Your time is too much like a 
dancer’s.” 

Then all eyes turned toward the leader of the 
youths, a man with a Saul-like neck, large mouth, wet, 
thick lips, and burning eyes ; all bespeaking a person 
who is never religious beyond the drawings of religious 
excitement, for excitement’s sake, and never self- 
restraining, except as checked by fear of a very mate 
rial hell. Such an one, if he have any regularity in 
his piety, will have it because somebody opposes, or 
because, having swallowed, with one lazy gulp, a heavy 
creed, he thereafter goes about condoning by habit his 
petty vices, in trying to force others to be better than 
he himself ever expects to be. Such are never spiritual, 
and seldom martyrs ; but they make good persecutors, 
and so do a work that compels others, by suffering, to 
be spiritual, and, may be, good martyrs. This leader 
made sharp retort, thrusting out his chin to enforce it : 

“The Psalm is all right, and, if the old men sang 
more, they would have less time for moaning. Sing- 
ing and moaning are much alike, only the former 
cheers men, the latter, devils ! ” 

“ Son,” replied the patriarch, “ revile not the fathers. 
We do not condemn thy joy as sin ; but yet it now 
seems inopportune. We are entering captivity, not 
liberation. Our holy and our beautiful temple is in 
ruins ; our people like hunted quail.” 

“ But, this is feast time,” said the youth. 

“ What a feast ! I remember it as it was when the 


The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant City. 


267 


nation gathered at Jerusalem, to the number of 
nigh 3,000,000, and offered 250,000 lambs. Ah, 
now, a handful, in this grim old city surrounded by 
aliens ! ” 

The elder, so speaking, bowed his head, threw his 
mantle over his eyes and wept ; meanwhile his fellow- 
elders gathered about him, very reverently, and waved 
their hands rebuking toward the youths. Just then 
there drew near a beautiful Jewess, led by an aged 
man, the latter garbed partly as an Israelite, and partly 
as one of the Druses. He had a saintly mien, and fixed 
the attention of the elders ; but, the young men, with 
one accord, youth-like, at once erected, in silent wor- 
ship, an unseen altar of devotion to the ne\y goddess. 
The grouping was striking and suggestive. The 
stranger was silent, and seemed to be intent on passing 
by so ; but the elders felt their responsibility. It is 
the fate of the religious leader to be expected to 
explain every thing. He must talk to everybody, and 
about every matter. He cannot, when he will, keep 
quiet and so get the credit for fullness of wisdom, as do 
some. He must express an opinion, for silence is 
deemed a greater sin in such than insincerity or words 
out of ignorance. The foremost of the elders felt 
called to act, and so confronting the two new comers, 
sternly addressed the maiden: 

I perceive that thou art of my people ; wherefore 
comest thou here, and in this companionship? Know- 
est thou not that women are forbidden to be at the 
first of the feast ?" 

The young men were not in accord with the elder; 
they stood apart, and some whispered to others : 

“ It is Miriamne de Griffin. ” 


i68 


The Queen of the House of David. 


The maiden shrank back a little ; but the saintly marl 
with her, advancing a step, replied : 

I am the maiden’s guardian to-day, fathers, and 
responsible for her act. Say on ! ” 

The elder, though knowing full well who the speaker 
was, and also fully understanding the import of his 
challenge, pretended to have neither heard nor seen 
him. He looked past the speaker, who was champion- 
ing the maiden, and continued : 

“ Do thy people at home know of these indiscreet 
acts? ” 

“Hold, Rabbi! no insinuations.” The saintly man’s 
voice was commanding, and compelled silence. He 
continued: “We go our way, ye yours. Ye can not 
help yourselves out of your miseries ; then presume 
not to direct us.” He checked his rising anger, re- 
membering that he was a religious teacher, and 
launched out in a wayside sermon. “Ye children of 
Abraham, hear me, though I came not to counsel. Ye 
have stopped my progress, now hear God’s truth ! 
There are dangers without, but greater ones within ; 
though your eyes, being veiled, ye perceive not these 
things. I noticed as I was coming this way that the 
tombs and grave-stones every where have been whitened 
recently. They tell me this was done so as to enable 
your people plainly to see them and so avoid them. 
Yet fleeing defilement of the dead, ye live in a grave, 
all of you. All your prefiguring feasts have ripened 
into a glowing present that treads out into a full 
day 1 ” 

The old men seemed puzzled and angry; the young 
men puzzled but glad. They welcomed any sermon if 
it came with novelty. They reasoned within them- 


The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant City. 



Selves that the old teachings were dead, and that a new 
creed could be no worse. If it were novel, it would 
have at least a temporary freshness. 

The speaker proceeded, for the congregation before 
him, being divided in sentiment, invited him, so far, to 
proceed. 

“ Oh, nation, called to be the light of the world, 
ye bear but phantom torches. Ye move sorrowfully, 
surrounded by walls of cloud, but just beyond there 
lies a glorious firmament, aglow with suns of hope and 
a thousand golden-arched doors made of realized pro- 
phecies and promises ripened. Can ye make these 
ruined habitations of mighty men, now sleeping in the 
cliffs and valleys about us, again teem with their former 
life? No, no ! yet less readily can ye make your dead, 
finished, vanishing types take new life. Ye are puz- 
zled and partially angry, but hold in check the hot 
blood, ril soon depart ; yet before I go, I’ll tell ye, 
all, this for your deepest thinking : Ye can never cele- 
brate again the Passover ! God shut ye from your 
Temple long ago to teach you this; these traveling 
ceremonials of yours are but mockeries. The last real 
passover was celebrated when your fathers slew the 
Nazarene '' 

“Let us stone him ! " vehemently cried the brawny 
leader of the youths, and the elders turned their backs, 
as if to give approval to the violence, but not incur lia- 
bility by witnessing. 

The brawny youth seized a boulder as if to begin ; 
the saintly man did not move, and another youth 
seized the arm of the youth of brawn. 

“Young men, I’ll show you an entrancing picture," 
was the saintly man’s calm words. .They were in- 


^70 The Queen of the House of David, 

stantly intent. Look, you arid your old men 
make the sign of the cross by your ranks. 
Look again, by the cross stands this damsel, simple,- 
pure and loving ; an ideal woman. Her name, Miri- 
amne, or Mary. Do not delude yourselves into the 
belief that it will be safe or possible for you to silence 
truth by murdering me. Fd despise your attempt if I 
did not pity your thoughtless rage. Do not forget the 
picture of this hour. The Passover will be fully cde-- 
brated when the power of the cross and the presence 
of purity is universally felt in earth. Only your men at- 
tend this your sacrifice. It is well; and when men 
truly bear the burden of sacrifice, women will be at 
their feast. Now, then, take heed. Farewell, an- 
cients ! ” 

So saying the saintly man of strange garb suddenly 
turned away, drawing the J ewess with him. The elders 
were confounded ; they could not find words at the 
moment for reply ; they were stung by the pleased and 
approving glances that the young men gave the de- 
parting couple. The elders would have been pleased 
to have taken the Jewish maiden from her escort with 
violence, but the latter was a brawny man. The elders 
knew the youths would not aid ; to attempt it them- 
selves would be likely to be a failure, certainly undig- 
nified. They deemed it wise, in any event, to con- 
serve their dignity, and being unable to do any thing 
more terrific, they hissed an orthodox malediction after 
the departing man and woman. That made the elders 
feel a little better. The two companies at the cross- 
ing of the streets fell to musing and conversing, but in 
different groups. The old men talked as old men, de- 
ploring the present and be-praising the past ; the youths 


The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant City. 2*J\ 

deplored the present and be-praised the future ; some 
of them trying to interpret the words of the saintly man. 
They all wanted to be very orthodox Jews, and yet 
they all felt that the stranger’s words were full of 
sweetness and good cheer. Some of the youths, like 
others of their age, had unconsciously sided with the 
strangers on account of the woman’s influence. They 
admired her, and the side she was on was charmingly 
invincible. 

The Arabs are coming ! ” 

It was a cry starting up from all directions, and 
passed from lip to lip like the tidings of fire at night. 
The city was soon in confusion and panic ; then mixed 
crowds surged toward the crossing of the streets like 
terrified sheep. They needed leaders or shepherds. 
But the elders so lavish in advice usually, were dumb 
with fright now. Yet every body looked toward them 
for direction. Suddenly, the saintly man and the 
Jewess reappeared ; as suddenly transformed to a self- 
reliant leader, she cried out: “Youths of Israel, to the 
defense ; the enemy come in by the wall toward the Sun 
Temple’s ruins ! ” 

“ Perhaps it’s the ^ Angel of Death,’ ” cried the thick- 
necked leader of the youths. 

“ The All-Father of the covenant forefend ! ” groaned 
some of the elders. 

“ Fathers,” cried the Jewess, “pray as you can, but 
we younger ones must fight as well as pray. Pray the 
men to go to a charge ! ” 

“ A Deborah ! ” shouted the thick-necked youth. 
“Now lead and we’ll follow!” 

“ Shame I ” cried the saintly man. “ Lead your*» 
selves ! ” 


2/2 The Queen of the House of David, 

There was no need of argument ; the thick-necked 
youth waved his hand to the other young men and 
the/ all dashed away toward the advance of the 
enemy; all of the city having a mind to fight, becom- 
ing instant volunteers. But the elders, with a piety en- 
forced by prudence concluded to stay at the crossing 
and pray. Perhaps in their hearts they reasoned that 
if the enemy were repulsed they might claim the 
glory of having sustained the fighters, as Aarons and 
Hurs ; if the youths and their followers were overcome, 
then they, the elders, might claim prescience and say 
at the end : “We knew it were vain to resist." 

Soon there were heard the shouts and clangor of 
conflict. The fight was on. Miriamne breathlessly 
carried the news to her mother. 

The matron laid her hand on her bosom, not to still 
a fluttering heart, but affectionately- to toy with the 
handle of her faithful dagger. 

“ Oh, mother, when will these troublous times end ? 
what shall we do ? " 

“Daughter, fight ! if need be." 

“ But we are only women ! " 

“ But this is woman’s time ; remember Sisera ! " 
Rizpah began dressing for departure. 

“ Oh, mother, wait ! Let us send the boys for news 
into the city. Perhaps the worst has not come, when 
the mothers must take arms." 

Rizpah silently assented. The boys were sent, and 
in half an hour returned with hot and beaming faces. 
“ The Mamelukes are all slung out of the city ! Lots 
of them killed," both exclaimed, between their pant- 
ings. 

“ How brothers ; is it all oyer? ’■ 


The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant City, 273 

^^Yes, all over! They're gone! Oh, you ought to 
have seen how our young men and the Druses raced 
them," interposed one. 

“ If it hadn’t been for the Druses we’d all been mur- 
dered ! ’’ cried the other. Then the brothers caught up 
the narrative in turn. 

“And, Miriamne, some of the young soldier-like 
men, after the fight, went about shouting cheers for the 
the flag of Maccabees and the maid of Bozrah ! ’ They 
say the ‘ maid of Bozrah ’ means you. What do they 
intend ? " 

Miriamne seemed not to hear the question. She was 
engrossed with her own thoughts and thus was meditat- 
ing : “ It’s just as the Old Clock Man said ! The Druses 
by their needed aid prove it ; the J ews need a Saviour ! " 

“Boys," presently questioned Rizpah, “Were many 
of the heretics killed?" 

“ Oh, ever so many ! Yes, and we want cloths for 
the wounded," said the questioned lads. 

“ Now, may the alien dead rot ! " 

“ But we must bring cloths.’^ 

“ Who says it? " 

“ The ‘Old Clock Man ’ told every body to help the 
hurt." 

“And who, pray, is this ‘ Old Clock Man ?' " ! 

Rizpah was quickly answered by Miriamne. 

“ I know him, mother. He’s the leader of the 
Christians here, and a wondrously good old man who 
heals the sick, feeds the poor, teaches the ignorant and 
gives the true time of day to every body by the bell of 
his religious house ! " 

The mother fixed her eyes penetratingly upon Miri- 
amne for a moment, then frigidly questioned : 


274 


The Queen of the House of David. 


‘‘And since thou hast disobeyed me in making the 
acquaintance of a stranger, thou wilt now explain why 
thou hast never mentioned to me this ‘ Old Clock 
Man’ of whom thou dost seem to know so much! 
Who is he? ” 

“ Why, he’s the ‘ Old Clock Man ’ who mends poor 
people’s clocks, plays with the children and is doing 
every body kindness ! ” 

“ Some Christian witchery I ” 

“ Oh, mother, he’s an angel if ever there was one on 
earth 1 ” 

“Is he a Jew?” almost hissed Rizpah. 

“ I’ve forgotten to ask about that ; but I’m cer- 
tain he is, if only Jews are good, for he is a saint 
of God.” 

Rizpah’s face wore a sneer as she again spoke: 
“ How canst thou tell. Inexperience ? ” 

“ By acts. He goes about seeking poor people to 
clothe and feed, and ne is their physician as well, and 
will take no pay.” 

“ Some Christian perverter, trying to seduce the 
unthinking by pretended service. Beware of such, 
Miriamne ! ” 

“ But healing the sick and setting people’s clocks 
right can’t do harm ! I’m certain of that ? ” 

“ How sly ; he would set all Jewry to Christian time 
and faith at the same instant ! ” 

“ I love his way, mother ; it is so good ; more I do 
not know.” 

“ The old knave ! ” 

“ Oh ! mother, he is old, but no knave. Ought we 
not to be reverent to the hoary head in the way of right- 
eousness?” 


The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant City. 275 

“Yet an old man may poison women and children. 
I told thee the story of Agag once, daughter." 

“ Yes." 

“ I mean now to tell thee if this man be not a Jew, 
let him be like Agag, hewn to pieces. Flee him as a 
leper." 

“He don’t talk so. He says all mankind are broth- 
ers. Only to-day, he cried, to the men in the begin- 
ning of the fight, ‘ save your families as best you may,’ 
kill the wounded Moslem with kindness ! ’’ The rapid 
converse of the two women was interrupted by the im- 
patient cry of the boys for wraps and lint. As they 
started away, Miriamne darted after them, saying : “ I’ll 
go and help those caring for the wounded." 

“ Wayward " called after her the mother, “ remember 
my commands. Keep away from the old Perverter, 
and minister to suffering Israelites, only. God can 
spare the rest ! Let them die." 

In the midst of the suffering ones, Miriamne soon 
found herself, and as might be expected ; there, too» 
was the “Old Clock Man." As they met he said, 
laconically, “ It is fitting that woman’s tender hands 
minister thus." 

“ Thanks," was her reply. 

Presently Miriamne questions, with an unaffected 
diffidence, her companion. 

“ Will you tell me your name ? " 

“Call me father, that’s enough." 

» “ Ah ! but I can not, you are not my father." 

“ I may be." 

“ What jest is this! I’ve a father living ? " 

“ I am father to multitudes, but after the flesh, child- 
less." 


2y6 The Queen of the House of David, 

** Oh, thy children are dead, then ? ” 

Nay, some dead and some living; but, living or 
dead, they are my children.” 

“ This is a wilderment to me. Where is your wife ? ” 

** Everywhere. In early youth, with vows unuttera- 
ble, I wed my church. She is Humanity’s mother, and 
I the father of all of her children, who will let me serve 
them.” 

“ And is this the Christian faith ? ” 

It is mine, anyway.” 

“ I like it. I’m sure it must be safe ; being so good, 
and so you may be my father that way. Are there 
many fathers like you ? ” 

Many, and many needed, else sin will make all or- 
phans.” 

“ And you have no wife, no home ? ” 

A home most beautiful, which, at sunset. I’ll enter 
through a door, once shut, not possible to be opened 
by my hands, though its fastenings be but grass and 
daisies.” 

“You mean death?” As she said it, tears welled 
in Miriamne’s eyes. 

“ Weep not, my child, death is beautiful, at least 
to me.” 

“ Oh, good man — father. I do not yet know how to 
think about you or these things that you say. What 
made you so different from the people I know? ” 

“ A woman, a lovely woman.” 

“ Your mother ? ” • 

“ Not as you think.” 

“ Oh, then pardon my curiosity. You had some 
love ? ” 

“ Thou hast said it.” 


The Queen Proclaimed in the Giant City, 277 

Why did you not wed her ? Did she die ? ” 

“ A woman’s question ? I’ll tell thee all some other 
time. I hear approaching voices.” 

“ Tell me just a little more now ; do ? ” 

“ Are the wounded all attended properly? Mercy 
first, stories and sermons after.” 

“Ah, here come my brothers. I’ll inquire;” and 
away ran Miriamne to a group of youths, singing a 
roundelay, of which she caught but a few lines ; 

“Jew and Gentile, Christian, Turk, 

Equally shall share our work. 

For Adolphus’ good 
We’d shed our blood, 

For we have joined the balsam band, 

To cure all troubles in our land. 

We love the man. 

We love the band. 

We love the brothers of our balsam band.” 
Miriamne comprehended the situation in a moment, 
and all radiant with smiles, bounded to the side of her 
aged friend, crying: “ Father, oh, you’ve a bonny fam- 
ily coming ; over fifty youths and maidens ; some Jews, 
some Gentiles. They’ve been comforting the wound- 
ed and now have spontaneously formed some sort of 
friendly guild. 

“ That’s praiseworthy so far,” the saintly man replied. 
“ And don’t blush ; when I asked the leader what 
were their purposes and name, a dozen cried out at 
once ; * We’re Father Adolphus’s angels of mercy ? ’ ” 
“They could easily have found a better title, but 
youth in its frank celerity interprets human need. We 
all must have a pattern or hero. That’s the reason there 
are pagans; not finding the true God, some invent one. 
Anyway, God blesses the merciful.” 


278 The Queen of the House of David, 

^^Oh, these angels are splendid ; so earnest ; so happy ; 
so every thing good ! They all wear balsam-twig 
crowns, and are singing improvised ditties about charity 
and humanity, and that like.” 

“ Praised be God if they mean them, daughter.” 

Mean them ? Why they’ll make the ancients groan 
if they go to the crossways with their enthusiastic sing- 
ing. ‘ Black-frowns ! ’ if they disturb the Passover sol- 
emnities, won’t there be trouble? 

And Bozrah will never understand the meaning of 
the ceremonial, the phantom of which meaning some 
to-day are pursuing, until it beholds sweet charity 
sincerely applied, rising with healing and life in its 
wings to pass over savingly where humanity has pains 
and death.” 

The old priest looked away toward Jerusalem, as he 
spoke — his voice meanwhile becoming very tender, 
almost tremulous. Had one been able to enter his 
heart, there would have been seen a memory picture of 
Calvary. Miriamne was awed for a few moments ; the 
old man was lost in thought ; presently she recalled his 
attention : “ Father, the band is just at hand. Shall I 
introduce you ? ” 

“It is needless; I formed that Band of Charity, 
though I gave them not the name ; most all except 
the recruits of to-day know me.” 

The singers went by, saluting the priest as they 
passed ; obeying his signal to them not to tarry. 

Miriamne turned to her comrade with quickened con- 
fidence, and with her usual impetuosity exclaimed: 

“ I want to be what you like. Make me a Balsam- 
ite!” 

“ Thou hast a mother who might object.” 


The Queen Proclahned m the Giant City. 279 

‘‘Oh, no, no; not if she knew all, as do I.” 

“ Some have called my work witchcraft.” 

“I don’t care, since I know better. Make me a 
Balsamite, now, please?” 

“ So be it, child. Put thy hand on thy heart and 
repeat : ‘ I promise my Merciful Father always to show 
heartfelt kindness to all His creatures ^ especially those in 
misery^ because of His everlasting goodness toward my- 
self I 

“ I promise that gladly. Is that all ? ” 

“Yes; thy badge, a sprig of the evergreen balm- 
shrub, shall teach thee the rest.” 

“ Teach me the rest ? ” 

“Puzzled again, child? Well, I’ll teach thee, and 
the shrub shall recall my lessons. As thou dost 
learn to love nature, as thou wilt when getting back 
to a more child-like faith, nature will talk to thee 
all the time. See, this is unfading; so is mercy. 
When torrid suns make the shrub suffer, it sweats or 
weeps these healing gums. Trials make all good souls 
fruitful. Then see, this little shrub gives to the world 
all it receives, transforming its earthy nourishments, 
sunshines and showers, into a medicament for sufferers. 
It is a type of the All-Giver. It has but three flowers, 
and I read in these the signature of a Triune God. 
This thou wilt, perhaps, read some time for thyself, 
when thou hast learned the mystery of the Unspeaka- 
ble Gift.” 

“ My father, your wisdom is very beautiful.” 

“Would, my child, that my words ever be to thee 
as the nuts of this little evergreen emblem, though 
rough-coated, still filled with liquid of honey sweet- 


28 o The Queen of the House of David. 

The maiden yearned to embrace the priest. Had 
she done so, her feelings would have been like those 
of a daughter toward a father, or a devotee toward 
God. She yearned to express love for father. The 
fountain of that affection, hitherto unevoked, was full. 
But she restrained herself, and said, as she clasped the 
old man’s arm : “ May I be crowned? ” 

“ Yes, daughter; having served the bleeding as thou 
didst to-day, thou mayst.” The priest twined together 
some of the balsam bows and placed them upon her 
brow. I saw once, at Damascus, a painted present- 
ment of the mother of our Lord, on wood, from which, 
continuously, there exuded a precious nard, of all 
healing virtue. So they said, at least ; and more than 
this, I was assured it had power to heal even the 
wounds of infidels.” 

“ Is this really so ? ” 

I believe a Christian kindness to an unbeliever a 
medicine to the soul of the blesser and blest. That’s 
why I’m merciful to Moslem.” 

“ But you court dangers, do you not ? I remember 
your telling me once, that fanatics, or men with a false 
religion, falsely practiced, were like mad dogs — one 
could never tell when they might bite the kindest 
master.” 

“ True, some forgetting the essence of all religion 
worth the name. Charity, to propagate their theories, 
easily befool their consciences and murder gratitude. 
But ingratitude is a Christian and Jewish, as well as a 
heathen fault. In this all are alike. Still, though a 
man spoil all the good I try to do him, there’s one 
thing he can not spoil.” 

And that is what ? ” 


The Queen Proclawied in the Giant City, 281 

The bird of sunny plummage that sings in my 
heart because of the good I attempt. I met a 
French pilgrim, a while ago, who spent his time mostly 
in helping, as he could, to make the Mohammedan 
children he met, happy. He sang to them, gave them 
presents, acted as umpire in their sports, and if one got 
hurt he mothered it — (that’s what he called his tender, 
odd ways). Some called him wrong in his head, but 
when I knew him I believed that one sane, amid thou- 
sands crazed.” 

Who and what was he ? ” 

“ I asked him, and for reply got only this : * I’m 
Melchisedec, a priest of the wayside, seeking to win 
silver hands, silver feet, and crown jewels.’ ” 

Well, he would have frightened me, if I’d met him 
speaking that way and in such moods?” 

Oh, no ; he was not frightful ; he seemed to attract 
even the birds, and the ownerless curs ran to him when 
others spurned them. He once, when sick, told me 
that he came from Toul, in Lorraine, where was en- 
shrined an image of Madonna with a silver foot. He 
believed that tradition, which declared that that pre- 
sentment of Mary gave a sign by taking a step, on a 
certain time, which warned some of great impending 
danger, and thereupon the member was changed to the 
precious metal.” 

“ It’s a pretty story.” 

At least the lesson is honey-like. No being can 
strive to help another without finding the All-Shining 
often in his own soul. So our crowns are made.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE queen’s childhood. 

“ Now raise thy view, 

Unto the vision most resembling Christ’s.” 

—Dante. 

** Fear not, Maiy, for thou hast found favor with God.’’ 

—Gabriel. 

IRIAMNE, all aglow with pleasurable ex- 
citement and filled with a curiosity which 
at times rose to very serious questioning 
as to her own faith, anxiously sought to 
compass an early meeting with the “Old Clock Man.” 
She could not content herself to wait a chance oppor- 
tunity, and so, remembering that it was his custom at 
evening time to visit, alone, for meditation various old 
ruins like those of the Reservoir, she determined to 
seek him there; it being not very far from her home. 
With beating heart she repaired thither at sunset, the 
day after the Mameluke attack. Having traversed the 
Reservoir’s side some two or three hundred feet, she 
was on the point of returning, for the place was very 
lonely, when a voice startled her. 

“Oh, Father Adolphus, how you frighten me! I’m 
so glad you came ! ” 

“Looking for me, yet frightened at finding me. 
Glad I came, though I scared you?” 

“Well, men and women when frightened are glad of 
the fellowship of any thing seemingly strong. It’s 
easy for the terrified to believe or trust.” 




The Qiieeri s Childhood, 


283 


‘‘ There’s rare philosophy in thy head, little woman.” 

“ So? What were you saying when I startled so? ” 

“That the silvering of the moon brought out thy 
person beautifully. So she that sits above the moon, a 
queen in heaven, would beautify thy soul if thou 
shouldst elect to put on the character she ever wore.” 

“I can’t do that, knowing so little of her.” 

“A woman’s way of saying, tell me more.” 

“You would not torment your Mary with such rep- 
artee.” 

“ Woman again. Art thou jealous already ? ” 

“ Fie.” 

“ Say that again ! Once the foil of one of thy sex 
is penetrated, not having arguments, she can at least 
say ‘fie ’ ! Well, even ducklings hiss when helplessly 
entangled.” 

“Adolphus Von Gombard, I’ll not call you ‘father’ 
again, if you approach me any more in this courtier 
fashion.” 

“ Again, I say, an old head ; but I’d plead privilege.” 

“At least old enough to discern the sacred line that 
bounds all proper commerce between the sexes. You 
plead privilege ; I grant you the noblest any woman 
can give, the privilege of guiding my immortal soul ; 
but I remember to have heard that he who would shep- 
herd such as I, must be to her as a woman. The rela- 
tionship between us must be as that between the 
angels of heaven who neither marry nor are given in 
marriage.” 

“ Some young women receive teachings most will- 
ingly from fine-favored and patronizing instructors.” 

“ I know it ; but let none patronize me so. I’ve be- 
gun to adore the Sacrist of Bozrah; but if a breath or 


284 


The Queen of the House of David, 


word passes that makes me think of him chiefly as 
being a man, then I shall sit in his presence in fright, 
or flee as I would were I to find the place changed into 
a lonely night-draped waddy, my only company an 
image of some leering, giant Bacchus. But this un- 
equal defence is painful.” 

Then desist and tell me what I’m to do.” 

“You have been my ideal man, for heaven’s sake rob 
me not by changing ! ” 

“ Right nobly spoken, daughter. Now pardon me, 
for I was putting thee to a test.” 

“ A test? ” 

“Yes. It’s forbidden, by customs hereabout, for 
man and woman, as we, alone to conyerse face to face; 
perhaps wisely, if one be bad and the other weak. 
Yet the custom is heathenish — low moral tone engen- 
dering mighty suspicions ! ” 

Did my priest think me a heathen ? ” 

“ No, not that ; but they say the moon makes lovers 
and others mad. I was wondering whether I was deal- 
ing with a bundle of romancings or an earnest girl ? ” 

Delicately the maiden avoided the query with 
another: 

“You loved Mary; why did you not wed her?” 

“ Woman again ; doomed to make all vistas end in 
wedlock. With your sex love, beginning to give, gives 
all readily, and seems to find no rest until there’s con- 
jugal union.” 

“ I have not desired to give all that way to those 
I’ve loved ! ” 

“ It is all or nothing. Ye women love only relatives, 
and never cease to desire to make all relatives whom 
ye want to loye, Why, girl, my Mary is a saint ; she 


The Queen s Childhood. 285 

died ages ago, after the flesh ; but as a model for all 
womankind lives forever.” 

How was she your Mary, then?” 

“ She belongs to every noble minded man as his 
inspirer.” 

“ Mary — you call her Mary. I thought all the holy 
and the great had uncommon names ? ” 

“ In fiction they do; in reality the name is nothing.” 
Was she wise and beautiful? ” 

One of our most holy teachers, Epiphanius, who 
lived less than four hundred years after Mary, spent 
many years at Bethlehem and gathered facts that 
caused him thus to write. ^ She. was of middle stature, 
her face oval, her eyes brilliant and of an olive tint ; 
her eyebrows arched and black, her hair a pale brown, 
her complexion fair as wheat. She spoke little, but she 
spoke freely and affably. She was grave, courteous, 
tranquil. In her deportment was nothing lax or feeble.' 
Saint Denis, the Areopagite, who is said to have seen 
this queen of David's house in her lifetime, declared 
that she was ‘a dazzling beauty,' that he ‘would have 
adored her as a goddess had he not known that there was 
but one God ! ' Of this much I’m certain, my Bozrah 
Miriamne, one so serene of character, and so pure, 
must have reflected her inner, imperishable beauties in 
her features.” 

“ Father Adolphus, you mention strange names. 
There are none that sound like those revered by my 
people. Do you ever hate my race? If^you do you 
must not teach me any doctrine.” 

“ Hate? Why, I love all peoples, and by faith I am 
made a child of Abraham.” 

Then you are a proselyte ? ** 


286 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ Not by any forms. I believe in the God of Abra- 
ham and His Messiah. That makes me a perfect Jew.” 

“ This is strange. My mother never unfolded it to 
me.” 

“ Ah, she has not yet looked into these royal mys- 
teries ? ” 

“ But, good father, is your name among our chronol- 
ogies ? ” 

“ Thanks to the God of the Patriarchs, yes ; it is 
with that of Moses, David, Elijah, and all the rest, in 
the Lamb’s Book of Life.” 

“Where?” 

“ In Heaven.” 

“ How wonderful; yet Tm afraid to hear more.” 

“Shall I take thee home?” 

“ No ; tell me more of Mary. You say she made 
you lonely and a father ? ” 

“ I must then begin her history, and show thee how 
and why she lived ? ” 

“ Do you think it will tire me? ” 

“ Fear not ! Her story is a poem, a picture, a trag- 
edy ; it’s one long delight.” 

“Then tell it to me, I pray you.” 

So the priest proceeded : 

“ When the world was very wicked, and therefore 
very sad, God in His goodness v/as drawn to send from 
heaven a light-bearer — some one to tell man his duty 
and able to win back to the Great Father mankind’s 
straying affections. Thou dost know this much, and 
hast read in'thy sacred Scriptures how God called to 
the universe, all chaotic and dark, to come forth into 
beautiful form ; how he said to the darkness, ^ Let there 
be light! That history bears within it a fine sermon. 


The Qtieetis Childhood, 287 

it’s a picture of God’s. Out of sin, darkness, confu- 
sion, there emerged a perfect man in a Paradisiacal 
home, with a perfect, beautiful woman as a help-mate 
by his side. That was God’s ideal of perfection and 
happiness. It delighted the Father of Joys to make 
it. This is ever true ; behind all clouds in God’s Provi- 
dence is sunshine, and beyond all disorders somewhere 
at last will walk forth unalloyed pleasure, a Sabbath- 
like rest, and fullness of harmony.” 

“ Oh, can you make me believe and feel this?” 

“ Wait patiently.” 

“ I try to do so; but I’m discouraged by the present 
miseries in my family and in all our nation.” 

“ God mourns over all our sorrows before they or we 
are born, but His wisdom and power of cure are fault- 
less. Wait. Times are mending, and the moral sphere 
is dipping into the rim of light’s oceans. I think the 
angels perceive the world now, as thou perceivest the 
new moon.” 

“ The poetry of the words I can not interpret.” 

The moon’s a dark globe, with a ribbon of silver 
across it.” 

“ And things have been worse ; now are bettering? ” 
Assuredly so. Believe there is a God, and thou’lt 
rest in hope. Go back a little in history to when Caesar 
Augustus, of awful pagan Rome, ruled the world, hav- 
ing won dominion through desolating wars. The 
most educated Romans then believed in no hereafter, 
and sought openly, without restraint, the grossest 
pleasures. The ignorant believed in fabled monstrosi- 
ties. Rome set the fashions of all the world. The 
Jews, thy people, God’s people, were lower, morally, 
then, than ever they had been before. They were 


^§8 The Queen of the House of David, 

divided into warring families and sects, holding a few 
forms and traditions, but having little heart in religion. 
The rest of mankind was barbarous. Thou hast heard 
how the Roman Titus overthrew Jerusalem, slaughter- 
ing thy people by thousands, defiling their holy Temple 
and seeming to blot out nearly the whole of thy race. 
That time of Titus was midnight ; since that the day 
has been slowly advancing. Before that awful culmi- 
nation of sorrows, the Divine Trinity held august 
council, and, as say the traditions of my church, deter- 
mined to bring a holy sunrise to the earth’s midnight. 
The trouble of all creation was that man had fallen. 
The Divine Council decreed to confound the devil, who 
broke up the first home and ruined the first pure pair 
by causing to emerge from another home, another pair. 
They came, this time mother and Son, to be the moral 
patterns for the race, the beginning of a new, sin-con- 
quering dispensation. The fathers hand down these 
sayings: ‘ The august, regal Triune Council thus de- 
creed : “ Let us make a pure creature, dearer to us than 
all others.” They say she was begotten upon the Sab- 
bath, the birth-day of the angels, whose queen she 
was to be. Then one thousand of the ministering 
spirits were commissioned to defend her; while Gabriel 
was sent to announce the glad tidings of the birth of a 
Saviour’s mother, in Hades. Her angels appeared as 
young men, of majestic mien, of marvelous beauty and 
pure as crystals. Their garments were like gold, richly 
colored, and could not be touched any more than could 
be the light of the sun.” 

How charming! But is this all true?” exclaimed 
the maiden. 

Without reply, the priest continued: “They were 


The Queen's Childhood, 


289 

Crowned with diadems, exhaling celestial perfumes; in 
their hands they bore interwoven palms ; on their arms 
and breasts were crosses and military devices. They 
were swift of flight, some of them six-winged, like the 
angels of Isaiah’s vision.” 

“How dazzling! But is this all true?” Miriamne 
persisted. 

“Well, it’s not in thy sacred books nor in mine so 
written.” 

“ Then you are giving me your imaginings?” 

“ Oh, no ; but after the manner I have spoken, it is 
recorded in revered traditions of my church, and none 
can very well disprove the sayings.” 

“I wonder if such honors made Mary proud?” 

“A strange query.” 

“ I’d like to love one such as she, but could not if she 
were haughty or lofty, like the great of earth.” 

“ It would have made such as thou proud, perhaps ; 
but there was none of the serpent in her whose Off- 
spring was to crush the serpent’s head.” 

“ Is there any of the serpent in me? ” 

“ I’m not thy judge.” 

“Then she was immaculate? ” 

“Ah, that’s a question for the doctors. I’m too 
simple to know beyond what is written. I’m glad to 
know that she rejoiced in her son, as a God and a Sa- 
viour ! ” — “ She was of noble family, though her parents 
were poor,” the priest continued. “ Her mother was 
by name Anna, and worthy of the name, which is by 
interpretation ^gracious.' Traditions of her goodness 
are many, and the good and great have honored her 
memory. I paid Anna homage, that of a youth respect- 
ful of worthy motherhood, at Constantinople, in a 


2g6 The Queen of the House of David, 

church erected in the year 710 to commemorate that 
saint. Among others, also Justinian, the Emperor, 
in the year 550, dedicated a sacred place to Mary’s 
mother.” 

“Then she had her meed of praise, at last? ” 

“Tradition, though tardy, has been just ; but I trust 
not tradition alone. I easily reason that there must 
have been much of goodness and womanly beauty in 
the mother that bore such a woman as Mary. I know 
that God can bring forth angels from the offscourings, 
but that is not His way. He works by steps upward. 
I tell thee, girl, the mother gives her life to her off- 
spring, and in spite of training, almost in spite of 
regeneration, the characteristics of this parent will 
reappear in the child. But to my story about Mary’s 
parents, Jehoikim and Anna. 

“ Blessed be God, Anna and Jehoikim were un- 
tainted by the pride of life, and, though living in a 
time of loose morals, walked lovingly, constantly with 
each other, through all their days. I talk to thee as 
to a prudent, but not prudish, young woman. Society 
is well rotted when divorce is about as common as 
marriage; it was that way in Anna and Jehoikim’s 
time. Why, even the exacting Pharisees then taught 
that a man might divorce a wife who had lost her per- 
sonal beauty, or badly cooked her husband’s meat. Jeho- 
ikim might have left Anna, for she was childless; that 
was reason enough for divorcement to the average Jew, 
then. But their love was beautiful. The man, as was 
his duty, clung tenderly to his wife; her misfortune 
making her all the more in need of his tenderness. 
Dost thou not think so?” 

“ I suppose so. I don’t know.” 


The Queen s Childhood. 2gt 

Pardon my earnestness ; it made me forget thy 
inexperience ! 

“ Well, God rewarded their constancy, and they 
became the parents of my Mary. The father had a 
noble ancestry; but, what is better, within himself a 
royal heart. He bore by right the priestly office ; but 
that was not much to such a man, in respect to worldly 
gain. Honest priests in his time were generally poor; 
the priestly preferments went, most richly laden, to 
those who dealt corruptly, and truckled to the ruling 
powers. Mary’s father was above sordidness and sim- 
ony. He had little to give or to leave to his beloved, 
but he left his child a good name and the remem- 
brance of the blessed. So while God chose the humble 
to confound the mighty, and serenely exalted those of 
less estate, He was mindful to choose His elect from 
the ranks of the morally great. Such are found in all 
places and times, and when surrounded, as were these 
pious parents, by the gross, low and selfish, they shine 
with transcendent splendor. In Tisri, the first month 
of the Jewish civic year, while the smoke of the holo- 
causts were ascending, to invite heaven’s pardon, Mary, 
who was to bring forth the world’s greatest offering 
for sin, was born at Nazareth. Her career was fore- 
ordained, and she was soon walking her course of piety 
and sorrow. Though inexperienced and tender-hearted, 
sorrows in heaviest, grimmest forms fell upon her. 
Her father died when she was, it is said, only nine 
years of age ; not long after, the girl knelt, a mourner, 
by the bier of her mother; the golden hairs of youth 
mingling, in the disheveling of utter grief, with the 
gray, which crowned the queen and guide of her heart, 
her mother. On the threshhold of her life Mary’s 


292 The Queen of the House of David. 

parents were called away from her, leaving her no heri- 
tage but their precepts and example. They say that 
Jehoikim’s hands were stretched out, as in benediction, 
when he died, and so remained until his burial, remind- 
ing all that his last act was a commendation of his 
little daughter to Him who carries the lambs in his 
bosom ! The picture of these outstretched hands, and 
of the girl embracing the aged dead mother, are often 
in my mind ; they never fail to deeply move me. 
Poor orphaned lamb ! " 

Miriamne brushed away a tear, a sort of self-pitying 
tear. She ran forward in mind, to the day when she, 
herself, would be orphaned, without a benediction, or, 
perhaps, a cheering memory. Then she questioned : 

“ Did your Mary have other friends?" 

‘■‘Yea, her Heavenly Father. It is said, also, that 
she was cared for by the elders of the people, and religi- 
ously trained under the very shadows of the Temple. 
We may readily believe this; for, in her after life, she 
evinced a self-possession in adversity that witnessed of 
a thorough religious culture. If there was no other 
evidence, her splendid poem, the ‘ Magnificat,' would 
convince any seeking proof, that Mary had had sur- 
passing benefits and privileges in the study of God’s 
words, as well as in the best learning of her people, 
the Jews. But, Miriamne, I’ll weary thee; let us turn 
toward thy home.’’ Presently they stood not far from 
the old stone house of Rizpah ; then Von Gombard drew 
from under his mantle a roll of writings. “ Here, take 
and read. After its perusal I’ll see thee again." So 
saying, the old priest lifted a hand in blessing, and 
then moved away toward his abode. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE WEDDING, THE BIRTH AND THE FLIGHT. 

“ Seraph of heaven ; too gentle to be human, 

Veiled beneath the radiant form of woman. 

Sweet benediction oHhe Ciernal curse ; 

Veiled glory of the lampless universe ! 

Thou moon beyond the clouds, thou living form ; 

Thou wonder and thou Beauty 

Thou harmony of nature’s art.” 

—Shelley. 

“Take that one hour at Bethlehem out of human history, and 
eighteen centuries of hours are left but partially explained.” 

— Prof. Newman Smyth. 

HAT so engages thee, daughter ques- 
tioned Rizpah, as they sat together at even- 
ing in the old stone house. 

“ Tm reading the story of a lovely orphan 
girl. I wish I were, in heart, as lovely as she." 

“Was she a white citadel, pure and strong?" 

“ Peerless, indeed ; the very queen of women, I 
think." 

“ Oh, then thou must be reading of glorious Rizpah ? 
Now fill me with this matter! I thirst to hear." 

Miriamne, though fearful of further exposing her 
thoughts and study, obeyed, knowing full well that 
nothing would so stimulate her mother’s curiosity as 
attempted evasion. 

“ I’ve been reading of the orphan girl’s marriage. 
Shall I go back, or continue from that period ? Her 



294 The Queen of the House of David, 

name was Mary, and she was a Jewess; that’s the 
sum of the beginning.” 

“ Go forward,” sententiously replied the elder. 

Miriamne complied : 

“ The guardians and relatives of Mary determined that 
she should early wed some proper person to be her pro- 
tector, and so, according to Jewish custom, they went about 
the selection of a husband for her as soon as she had 
reached her fourteenth year. This selection was deemed 
a pious and serious duty by all the participants therein ; 
therefore it was made by an appeal to the Lord with lots. 
Zacharias, the presiding priest, managed the proceeding, 
as follows : He first inquired God’s will in prayer. An 
angel brought reply, saying : ‘ Go forth ; call together 
all the widowers among the people, and let each bring 
his rod.’ 

“ In truth here is refreshment ! If all weddings were 
contrived under the wisdom of olderheads, there would 
be fewer mad marriages.” Rizpah swayed back and 
forth as she spoke. She was remembering, now, 
the curse of Harrimai that day in Gerash, long 
years before. She thought him a monster then, but 
now she was enshrining him in mind by the Angel of 
the Lots. 

“ Shall I go on, mother? ” 

“ Go on.” 

“ He to whom the Lord shall show a sign, let him 
be husband of Mary,” read Miriamne. 

“ Ah, the Lord would not trust the youths to draw ! 
He knows that a man is like to harass the life out of 
one woman before he learns to care for another rightly. 
God was good to Mary in hedging her in to a widower, 
if needs be that she must marry.” 

Rizpah did not sway back and forth now ; she sat 
erect and laughed bitterly. 



Ry Raphael, 


I HE MARRIAGE < )E MARY 


AND JOSEPH. 









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The Wedding, the Birth and the Flight, 295 

Miriamne continued : 

There were many splendid youths who rejoiced to be 
permitted to bring their wands.’ 

“ Oh, ho ! then they were suffered to draw for the 
girl? But what matter — the Angel of Lots presided! 
He’d not let the youths succeed!” Again Rizpah 
laughed, and as mockingly as before. 

Miriamne again read : 

“ After prayer each deposited his almond tree with the 
aged Temple priest. In the early morning they anxiously 
sought the verdict. It was found that all the rods were 
dead, except that of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of 
Mathan ; but his blossomed as that which, ages before, con- 
firmed miraculously the priesthood of Aaron’s sons. Then 
there appeared another miracle, for as Joseph reached forth 
his hand to take his blooming branch, there issued from 
among its luxurious blossoms, miraculously, a white dove, 
dazzling as snow. For a moment the dove gracefully sus- 
pended itself in the air, turning its eyes from one to another 
of the competitors ; then it alighted on Joseph’s head. 
^Thou art the person chosen to take the Virgin and keep 
her for the Lord,’ said the priest, solemnly, to Joseph. All 
the rivals responded ‘ Amen,’ and then the dove flew away 
toward heaven. Joseph was thirty-three years old, of pleas- 
ing countenance, very modest, graceful, and of comely 
figure, and a widower. 

“ When all was told to Mary she modestly replied : ‘ I 
knew it, for the Lord has been with me.’ Zacharias told 
Mary that Joseph was a true, honest Jew, a carpenter by 
trade, and trained by a father who fully believed the adage 
of Rabbins, which said that ‘ He who would not make his 
son a robber makes him a mechanic.’ ‘ Besides this,’ said 
the Temple priest, ‘ thy espoused one is like thyself, of the 
royal house of David. The blood of twenty kings mingle 
in the veins of you both. God grant that to that house of 
David there soon be born another, greater than all before, 
to deliver our holy nation from foreign masters.’ Mary 
made no reply, but as a blush of hopefulness passed over 
her face^ she looked verv earnestly toward heaven and 


296 The Queen of the House of David, 

seemed to be repeating the prayer of the priest to the 
All Father. The formal betrothal th^n took place. Joseph 
presented his chosen bride a small token of silver, saying : 
* If thou consentest to be my bride, accept this.’ She 
took it, smiling affectionately, and then the witnesses signed 
the usual Jewish compact, which read as follows : 

“ ‘ I Joseph, said to Mary, daughter of Jehoiakim, become 
my wife under the law of Moses and Israel. I promise to 
honor thee ; to provide for thy support ; thy food and thy 
clothing ; according to the custom of Hebrew husbands, 
who honor their wives, as is befitting. I give thee at once 
thy dowry and promise thee besides nourishment, and 
clothing, and whatsoever shall be necessary for thee, also 
conjugal friendship, a thing common to all nations of the 
world. Mary consents to become the wife of Joseph.’ The 
two signed the document.” 

“ See Miriamne, the Jews were wise ; they made the 
husbands do most of the promising. They knew that 
the wives would be all wifely without such pledging.” 
And Rizpah again bitterly laughed. 

“ Shall I proceed ?” 

Yes, oh, proceed ; it’s a Jewish poem.” 

“Thereupon Joseph placed a jeweled ring upon Mary’s 
fourth finger, with a smile and a blush, saying, the ‘ physi- 
cians say, my beloved, that a nerve and a vein, reaching the 
heart together, lay close to the surface of that finger.’ And 
she understood and was happy. A benediction was pro- 
nounced, and then the espoused pair were ready to depart 
to Joseph’s house. He was to be the guardian of the maiden 
from that hour forth. The hereditary servants of the fami- 
lies took up the line of march, bearing flaming torches ; 
immediately after these followed a procession of women, 
richly garbed and wearing golden tiaras and pearl bedecked 
girdles. Behind these attendants of the virgin, followed a 
goodly company of dexterous musicians and singers, dis- 
coursing rapturously the significant canticles of Solomon. 
As the latter went on from time to time they broke out of the 
line of march and disported themselves in the eastern star- 
dance, saying as they did so, to one another, ‘ the morning 
stars sang at creation ; the dawn of a new home coming by 


The Weddings the Birth and the Flight, 297 

love, is next to creation the most joyous of all events.’ * So 
the dancers went on, and as they rejoiced in poetic motions, 
they thought of the stars which yet tremble as if with the 
thrilling of that first delight they shouted. Of all, the sweet 
orphan girl now companioned was the center. She was be- 
decked with costly jewels, the glad tributes of those that loved 
her ; over her was the significant veil, and, so beneath the 
wedding canopy, she entered Nazareth to be a wife. Her sky 
had become very bright, for her’s was a heart that took 
exquisite joy from the honeyed petals of affection’s flower. 
No bride ever more fully entered into that supreme state, 
the all exalting, entrancing, expanding, thrilling period of 
new married life. She went forward in the proud con- 
sciousness that her weakness had overcome a giant, and 
that while she lead a royal captive, she was supremely happy 
in her utter bestowal of her all upon the one only man now 
became almost next to God in the temple of her soul.” 

Miriamne paused, and Rizpah wept a little. 

Shall I go on or pause, mother ? ” 

“ Go on, dear.” 

But you weep, are you ill ? ” 

Oh, no, except in memory. This is sweet sorrow, 
that beats us back and forth ; contrasting -dark endings 
with bright beginnings; heaven high hopings with 
black disappointments, and happy lives with our own, 
all interwoven with miseries. I walked once in the sweet 
illusions of bridal days, but an utter widowhood came 
before death called. That’s the worst bereavement.” 

“But some marriages are all happiness, are they 
not?” queried the daughter, 

“ Some, but not many. That’s the rule. Most of 
them begin well enough, but wedded mates are not 
as wisely tender as lovers; they too soon entomb 
all their joys in graves of selfishness and lust. So 
then the dove flies from the blossom of espousal never 
to return,” 


298 The Queen of the House of David. 

“ Perhaps, such as they did not love enough to begin 
with and so separated ?” 

“ Some who would die for each other before mar- 
riage, would die to be quit of each other, after. Hence 
the brood of suicides, and that blackest crime of all, 
murder, which often raises its treacherous, cruel head 
within the marriage chamber.” 

“ How comes this error, trouble, horror ? ” 

“ In wedding bodies, without consents or courtings of 
the souls, if those, who, though mismated, happen to 
join lives, were only wise, they might yet be happy, 
growing together. But read more daughter.” 

“ In the fullness of time, the angel Gabriel, known amid 
the Seraphim as God’s champion, the chosen of Jehovah and 
His messenger of comfort and sympathy from heaven to 
man, was commissioned to carry the glorious news to earth. 
He spread his rainbow pinions, and with his own radiance 
to lighten his course, passed from the confines of the august 
court of the Divine Presence, the companionship of his fel- 
low archangels, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, to go out across 
the planet-lightened realms of everlasting space. His 
course was watched with throbbing interest by the spirits of 
mercy appointed for ministering to man. Gabriel sped on, 
with sweeps of power which almost devoured distances, nor 
paused to bask for a moment in the many-colored lights of 
the golden and silvery shielded planets or constellations 
that he passed in his rapid flight. The wheeling suns and 
rushing worlds, marching and charging along the shoreless 
oceans of eternal space, had no splendors nor powers with 
which to challenge his high mission ; though theirs was 
grand, his was grander. He traveled at love’s behest, on 
mercy’s work, to carry to this little earth, rolling along, 
mostly in shadows, the mandate of glory, the news of 
heaven’s great saving device. He bore proclamation in its 
substance and its realizations forever the manifold wisdom of 
God ; the wonder of all who know to think or reason. And 
so that voyage passed into the pages of history and the 
records of eternity as well. 


The Weddings the Birth and the Flight, 299 

“ Mary, whom Gabriel sought, was engaged in evening 
prayer as was her wont, with her face toward Jerusalem’s 
Temple.” 

Miriamne paused ; she perceived that she had ar- 
rived at a part of the manuscript which Father Adol- 
phus had marked with a red line to remind her it was 
from his Christian Bible. She feared to read this por- 
tion to her mother. 

Read on, daughter, the words are precious ; they 
are as songs in the night to my soul.” 

Miriamne continued : 

“And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent 
from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, 

“ To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was 
Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name 
was Mary 

“And the angel came in unto her and said. Hail! 
thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee : blessed 
art thou among women. 

“And when she saw him, she was troubled at his 
saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation 
this should be. 

“And the angel said unto her. Fear not, Mary: for 
thou hast found favor with God. 

“ And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, 
and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.” 

Miriamne read the last word “Joshua.” 

She proceeded : 

“ He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of 
the Highest ; and the Lord God shall give unto him 
the throne of his father David. 

“And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for- 
ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. 


300 The Queen of the House of David, 

*‘Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, 
seeing I know not a man? 

“And the angel answered and said unto her, The 
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of 
the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that 
Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called 
the Son of God.” 

“Hold! hold!” cried Rizpah. “What is this? the 
faith of the Nazarene?” 

Miriamne was awed. She feared she had proceeded 
too far; but quickly remembering an explanation of 
Father Adolphus, replied : “ Be content, mother, I 
read but that that appears in our holy prophets, Isaiah, 
the poetic and vehement ; his words you so much prize 
have here an echo.” 

Rizpah gazed at her daughter, with a puzzled, ques- 
tioning expression for a moment, and then senten- 
tiously said, “ Read on.” She was alert, though severe. 
Her curiosity was ruling, but her prudence was con- 
served, at least in her own mind. The daughter was 
anxious, but could not retreat ; she knew she must 
read further or make a futile effort to explain her 
reluctance. The two were a study; each afraid of the 
other ; each anxious to aid the other to truth ; both on 
guard, and, while professing to be all love for each 
other, attempting to move forward to a fuller fellow- 
ship by indirection. The outlines of the cross were 
appearing in that household, and never was there to be 
complete accord until there it ruled all hearts. 

Miriamne continued to read, but confined herself 
chiefly to notes made by the old priest on the margin 
of her manuscript. 

“ Presently Joseph, the affianced husband of Mary, dis- 


The Wedding, the Birth and the Flight. 301 

covered that his beloved was to become a mother. At first 
the discovery was like a dagger in his heart, for as yet the 
marriage had not been consummated. It was a crisis of 
great import and trial to husband and wife. Joseph, though 
now a plain man and a mechanic, carried in his veins the 
noblest blood of his race, being descendant of the ancient 
kings and in the line of Solomon and David. Besides that, 
he had all the abhorrence of the better Jews for adultery, 
that their awful law of death as its penalty, implied.” 

“ Did he help the mob to stone her?” cried Rizpah. 

Miriamne was startled by her mother’s angry earn- 
estness. 

“ Oh ! we’ll see.” 

She continued reading: 

“ He met his affianced in the evening on her return from 
Hebron’s rosy hills, whither she had gone to visit her kins- 
woman, the mother of John, by name Elizabeth. The inter- 
view of those two noble women had prepared Mary to tell 
her betrothed all that troubled and rejoiced her. When her 
espoused met her privately and for the last time, as he in- 
tended, he found her sweetly, serenely singing, as was her 
wont, a Davidic psalm. He was at first astonished, not 
knowing how she could be so happy under such stigma as 
seemed to rest upon her. His patrician blood was roused, 
and for a moment he was ready to denounce her to the 
Sanhedrim as an adulteress. Then he looked jat her, piti- 
fully, questioningly. It could not be, he meditated, that 
one so young could be so depraved as to sing God praises, 
being a criminal. She must be insane ! He tore himself 
from her presence, but instantly returned when she called 
out : ‘Joseph, God knows all ; touch not His anointed.’ 

“ ‘ Woman ! ’ he cried ‘ explain ! explain ! Thy seeming 
sin hangs scorpions over my eyes, and turns my heart to 
ashes. Thy calmness is a wonderment I ’ 

“ Then Mary quietly recited to him the wondrous story of 
Gabriel’s visit. 

“ Joseph was pale, and reverently attentive ; but still the 
sadness of his countenance betokened his incredulity. 

“ Mary, self-possessed, confident in her own integrity, 
continued : ‘ For three months I have been secluded with 


302 The Queen of the House of David. 

my kinswoman, Elizabeth. She knows I saw no man, and 
thou canst testify of the manner of my living since our 
espousal ; but I got words from God, at Hebron. When I 
first went into my kinswoman’s house.” 

“ Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost : 

“ And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, 
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the 
fruit of thy womb. 

“ And whence is this to me, that the mother of my 
Lord should come to me } 

“For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation 
sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb 
for joy. 

“ And blessed is she that believed : for there shall be 
a performance of those things which were told her 
from the Lord.” 

“ No sooner had Elizabeth finished that salutation, than 
the Spirit of the Most Holy Ghost possessed me and I, 
thus, without premeditation prophetically said : 

“ My soul doth magnify the Lord. 

“ And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 

“ For he hath regarded the low estate of his hand- 
maiden : for^ behold, from henceforth all generations 
shall call me blessed. 

“ For He that is mighty hath done to me great 
things ; and holy is His name. 

“ And His mercy is on them that fear him from gen- 
eration to generation. 

“ He hath shewed strength with his arm ; He hath 
scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 

“ He hath put down the mighty from their seats, 
and exalted them of low degree. 

“ He hath filled the hungry with good things ; and 
the rich He hath sent empty away. 


The Weddings the Birth and the Flight. 303 

“ He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance 
of his mercy. 

As He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his 
seed forever.”* 

“ I tarried until Elizabeth’s son was born. He is to be the 
herald of mine ! Joseph was amazed. The wisdom and 
stately character of her magnificent description and ascrip- 
tion were unaccountable. But he doubted still her integ- 
rity. Yet his wrath was softened into pity a little He 
hesitated, and then, being a just man and not willing to make 
her a public example.^ was mmded to put her away privately I' 

‘‘ Ha, ha laughed Rizpah, bitterly; I see now, 
’tis a beautiful fable thou art reading! Put her away 
privately ! a man do that under such circumstances ! 
Bah ! rather would a real man parade the woman’s 
guilt from the house tops. In truth, to show that he 
was sinless because he was such a Nemesis of sin ; or to 
get the pity of light-headed fools, who would gladly 
take the place of the discarded ! A pretty, baby face 
can catch unerringly the man who pities himself well, if 
she will only gush with real or affected pity for him. Pity 
and flatter a man and he’ll be — a Lucifer! But read 
it all. This is refreshing ; its so absurdly uncommon 1 ” 

The girl continued : 

But while bethought on these things, behold, the 
angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, say- 
ing. Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto 
thee Mary thy wife : for that which is conceived in her 
is of the Hoi}^ Ghost. 

'‘And she shall bring forth a son, thou shalt call his 
name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their 
sins. 

“ Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 
* The Magnificat, 


304 The Quee^t of the House of David, 

** Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring 
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, 
which being interpreted is, God with us. 

‘‘Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the 
angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him 
his wife. 

Miriamne again read “Joshua” for Jesus, but yet 
felt assured that her mother was in heart, recognizing' 
the source of the story. Rizpah, by silence, pretended 
not to know she was listening to parts of the Christian 
Bible, for she was very curious now. Miriamne was 
willing the harmless pretense should continue. But 
they furtively observed each other. 

“ I see ; this is a story based upon some of the 
Christian’s heresies,” interrupted Rizpah. “ If the 
stories be so unnatural. I’d never fear their sacred 
books ! ” 

Miriamne was rejoiced, for her mother was becoming 
interested, and that was nigh being fully persuaded 
that their home was not contaminated by the hated 
Christian’s Bible. Miriamne read again : 

“ Mary now was contented. She had the approval of 
God and her conscience, and that for which her young 
heart greatly yearned the approval of the one man of earth 
whom she loved. It mattered little to her that few others 
knew her wondrous secret. She knew her position was 
one of peril, and yet she felt certain God would be with 
her to the end. The joy of Joseph was full, and the revul- 
sion of feeling from crushing shame, to lofty hope was 
unutterable. A while before he was ready to die, as he 
began tearing, from his heart its idol, and attempting to 
consign her to the tomb like that of death, forgetfullness. 
Now he perceived himself elect of God to defend, vouch 
for and shelter the woman of women, the highly favored of 
Deity. 


The Weddings the Birth and the Flight. 305 

^‘And it came to pass in those days that there 
went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the 
world should be taxed. 

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own 
city. 

“ And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the 
city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, 
which is called Bethlehem, (because he was of the 
house and lineage of David,) 

^‘To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife. 

“And so it was, that, while they were there, the 
days were accomplished. 

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrap- 
ped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a man- 
ger ; because there was no room for them in the inn.” 

“ How barbarous ! They surely could not have been 
Jews who kept that inn, or a woman in bearing would 
have had tender welcome. They must have been 
Christians ; they are the people whose women blush 
when carrying little life, and, as if ashamed, forgetting 
that God had royally privileged them, hide themselves. 
Bah, Tm sick of the thought ! Tve seen Christian 
husbands ashamed of their pregnant wives ; ” so solilo- 
quised Rizpah. 

“There were no Christians at the time of these 
events, mother. But shall I read of the company 
Mary had, to comfort her?” 

“Yes, do; I’d like to have been there, just to rail at 
the inn’s folks.” 

Miriamne continued, 

“ And there were in the same country shepherds 
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by 
night. 


3o6 The Queen of the House of David, 

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, 
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them ; 
and they were sore afraid. 

And the angel said unto them. Fear not: for, be- 
hold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which 
shall be to all people.” 

“ It is said that even the cave, where Mary was, was 
filled with supernal light,” remarked Miriamne di- 
gressingly. 

“ I believe it on my w'ord. If angels ever come to 
earth, it must be surely to hold glad torches about the 
couches where beings, to be at last perchance like 
themselves, are coming forth to life,” said Rizpah. 

It is thus reported,” continued Miriamne : 

“Now when Jesus was born* in Bethlehem of Judea 
in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came 
wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 

“ Saying, Where is he that is born King of the 
Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are 
come to worship him.” 

Miriamne substituted Joshua for Jesus in the read- 
ing. 

“ Joshua, ‘ Joshua,’ what ^Joshua ’ is that ? ” 

“Joshua means “deliverer;” this one was to be 
such ; for the rest. I’ve not before read it, mother.” 

“ Read on, again,” tritely, Rizpah spoke. 

“When Herod the king had heard these things, he 
was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 

“And when he had gathered all the chief priests and 
scribes of the people together, he demanded of them 
where Christ should be born. 

“And they said unto him. In Bethlehem of Judea: 
for thus it is written by the prophet. 


The Wedding, the Birth and the Flight. 307 

“ And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not 
the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee 
shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people 
Israel. 

“ Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise 
men, inquired of them diligently what time the star 
appeared. 

And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said. Go and 
search diligently for the young child ; and when yc 
have found him, bring me word again, that I may come 
and worship him also. , 

When they had heard the king, they departed 
and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went be- 
fore them, till it came and stood over where the young 
child was. 

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with ex- 
ceeding great joy. 

“And when they were come into the house, they 
saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell 
down, and worshiped him : and when they had 
opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts ; 
gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 

“ And being warned of God in a dream that they 
should not return to Herod, they departed into their 
own country another way.” 

Miriamne read ‘The Annointed ' where the text 
said Christ. 

“ Miriamne, who could these men have been, Rab- 
bins ? ” 

“I think not, mother; I see upon the margin of my 
^ megellah' a note which says. These were light or fire- 
worshipers of Persia. They, or rather their ancestors 
had heard, centuries before, from the Jews, then their 


308 The Queen of the House of David. 

captives, that there was an expectation, based on 
wondrous prophecies, that some time, there was to 
be on earth a man, born of woman, in character 
like God and in mission the bringer in of the golden 
age. These Magi were seeking that person, like pious 
pilgrims.” 

“ Oh, the Messiah. Alas ! we all long for His com- 
ing!” Then Rizpah fell into a revery from which 
Miriamne roused her with the question : “Art too 
weary to hear more ? ” 

“ No, no ; read, on. These things strangely move 
and rest me.” 

Miriamne continued : 

“ When eight days were fulfilled, they circumcised the 
Child, calling him Joshua, offering, according to the law, a 
pair of turtle doves.” 

“Circumcised? Ah, Fm glad! They were good 
Jews, though poor ones, since they offered the gifts of 
the poor, two pigeons,” exclaimed Rizpah. 

Miriamne read onward : 

“There was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was 
Simeon ; and the same man was just and devout, wait- 
ing for the consolation of Israel. 

“And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, 
that he should not see death, before he had seen the 
Lord’s Christ. 

“ And he came by the Spirit into the Temple ; and 
when the parents brought in the child. 

“ Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God 
and said : 

“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, 
according to thy word : 

“ For niine eyes have seen th^ salvation. 


The Weddings the Birth and the Flight, 309 

Which thou hast prepared before the face of all 
people ; 

A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory r)f 
thy people Israel. 

^‘And Joseph and his mother marveled at these 
things which were spoken of him. 

“ And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his 
mother. Behold this child is set for the fall and rising 
again of many in Israel ; and for a sign which shall be 
spoken against ; 

“(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul 
also ;) that the thoughts of many hearts may be 
revealed.” 

“ How mysterious and contradictory, and yet how 
true the old man’s word, Miriamne ? He blessed the 
parents amid their pious services toward their offspring, 
yet predicted a sword thrust for the mother. Ah, the 
sword for the mother is ever impending ! But read 
further.” 

Miriamne continued : 

“And Anna, a prophetess, who was a widow of 
about fourscore and four years, which departed not 
from the temple, but served God with fastings and 
prayers night and day. 

“And she coming in that instant gave thanks like- 
wise unto the Lord, and spoke of him to all them that 
looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” 

“What a finished picture, Miriamne,” interrupted 
Rizpah. “See, a young mother committing her child 
to God ; a blessing and a sword of pain revealed ; 
then the finest human sympathy in the form of 
motherhood chastened by years coming to encourage 
her, Oh, the years have sadly wrecked a true woman 


310 The Queen of the House of David. 

if they have put her beyond saying, from her heart : 
‘Poor girl, I love thee,’ to her younger sister in her 
hour of maternal trial. But what followed ? ” 

Miriamne replied by again reading: 

“The angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a 
dream, saying. Arise, and take the young child and his 
mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I 
bring thee word : for Herod will seek the young child 
to destroy him.” 

“Ha! the jealous old hypocrite! But I remember, 
Herod murdered his wife. A man brute enough to do 
that could easily seek the life of an innocent babe. If 
Apollyon ever be dethroned because of the appear- 
ing of one more devilish than himself, the dethroner 
will be a wife-murderer ! ” exclaimed Rizpah, almost 
in a passion. 

Miriamne continued: 

“Joseph took the young child and his mother by 
night, and departed into Egypt. 

“ And was there until the death of Herod.” 

“So Jewry, our Jewry, gave one of its young 
mothers a stable for a bed chamber, a manger for her 
babe ; then refused her these by making her an exile. 
Cruel Israel said go or be childless! Oh, Israel ! how 
Pagan Rome defiled thee ! ” passionately exclaimed the 
Jewish matron. 

Miriamne paused until the mother questioned : 

“ Was there a pursuit ? ” 

“A hot one, though a vain one; my manuscript 
reads as follows : 

“ Herod had charged the Magi to tell him, on their 
return from their quest, the abode of the Child born under 
the star. He pretended to desire to pay it homage, but in 


The Weddings the Birth and the Flight. 3 1 1 

heart he was intending to murder it. The Magi, impressed 
by the goodness and sanctity of mother and Infant, never 
returned to Herod to betray them.” 

“ Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of 
the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and 
slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all 
the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, 
according to the time which he had diligently inquired 
of the wise men. 

^‘Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by 
Jeremy, the prophet, saying: 

In Ramah there was a voice heard, lamentation, 
and weeping, and a 'great mourning, Rachel weeping 
for her children, and would not be comforted, because 
they are not.” 

“ So a dark wave of misery rolled over Bethlehem. 
Hundreds of women, weeping over their own dead, were led 
to understand the cruel injustice of the spirit that drove the 
Virgin and her child into exile, and that, until the end of 
time, there will be sorrow in the homes of the land that 
does despite to the virtues and characteristics exemplified, 
so well, by that mother and that Child.” 

With these words Miriamne rolled up her parchment, 
saying: “ This is all there is written here.” 

‘‘All? It is well, for thou art weary child. We’ll 
now retire ; to-morrow I must speak with thee about 
the book. Good-night, now.” 

“ Good-night, mother.” 


chapter XXL 

THE QUEEN WITH HER FAMILY IN EGYPT. 

“ It is curious to observe, as the worship of the Virgin mother 
expanded and gathered to itself the relics of many an ancient faith, 
how the new and the old elements became amalgamated. . . . 

The Madonna assumed the characteristics . . . of the types of 

fertility.”— Anna Jamison. 

“Babe Jesus lay on Mary’s lap. 

The sun shone in His hair. 

And so it was she saw, mayhap. 

The crown already there.” 

—George McDonald. 

HE day following Miriamne’s readings to her 
mother, she eagerly sought Father Adol- 
• phus that she might receive more of the 
narrative, delightsome to herself and evi- 
dently interesting to her parent. 

Finding the priest at dawn in one of his accustomed 
walks amid the ruins, she scarcely waited for his 
“Peace, daughter,” until she exclaimed, “More! I 
want more of the story 1 ” 

“ Hast finished that I gave thee so soon? ” 

“ Yes, and read it all to my mother! Is that not 
wonderful ? ” 

“ Temerity ! ” 

“ No ; it charms her. She has fallen in love with 
the child-wife. Oh, what if my mother should come 
to think and believe as you — then I would ! ” 




The Queen with her Family in Fgypt. 31^ 

^‘Thou mayst alone ; but what part of the story de- 
sirest thou ? " ^ 

“All! Nothing less than all! What became of 
the Holy Family in Egypt? ” 

“Now sit down on this shattered column and Fll 
recount to thee the traditions in order, leaving thee to 
judge which is true.” 

“Tell me what you believe and I’ll believe it. 
That’s enough ! ” 

“ I scarcely am able to do that, not knowing whether 
to believe or disbelieve some of the things reported. 
But I remember them, and perceiving that though they 
are only traditions, they are very beautiful and very 
natural, I remember them with delight, that is very 
near to giving them full credence.” 

“ Then, so will I do.” 

“ It may be the wise way, for I’ve believed that the 
good angels who, under God, watched over the little 
outcast family drifting about in strange places, have 
also watched over the drifting stories of their wander- 
ings, letting the facts profitable for us to know, come 
safely to us, though they have come without the seal 
of authenticated history.” 

“ Now,' I believe all this, too.” 

“Well, then, ardent catechumen, listen. For three 
years the queenly Mary, with her consort and child, 
tarried in Egypt — ” 

“ How did they subsist ? ” 

“ Oh, the God of the outcasts Ishmael and Elijah, 
who provided water for one and bread for the other of 
those two, was the One who sent the Holy Family to 
Egypt with the charge that they ‘ be there until He 
brought them word.’ Now, thou hast learned that 


314 Que^n of the House of David. 

when God sends any on His work He charges Himself 
with their support.” 

‘‘ Did they find friends in Egypt ? ’ 

“ Thou wilt learn in time, daughter, that two of that 
family had, as none on earth before, the secret of mak- 
ing friends. They had the love-enchantment from on 
high, which has been winning its way ever since over 
the world. But I’ll proceed. There were in Egypt 
at that time multitudes of Israelites who had sought 
its refuge from the persecutions practiced toward them 
nearer home. Doubtless these exiles received Joseph’s 
family kindly. Also, in all the East at that time there 
were many artizan leagues, banded together to aid 
their fellow-craftsmen. Joseph being a carpenter, I 
doubt not, found among these sympathy and help.” 

“ At what place did the family abide ? ” 

“Tradition says they tarried for a considerable per- 
iod at Heliopolis, the city celebrated the world over 
for its splendid temple, where centered the Egyptian 
Sun worship. To me this tradition seems most reason- 
able, when I remember that the child of that family 
was pointed out before, by a miraculous star, which 
led the Fire worshipers of Persia to his cradle. The 
Fire worshipers of the far East and the Light wor- 
shipers of Egypt were much alike in their beliefs. 
They were all seeking light, and, impelled by the ne- 
cessity of man’s nature for some religion, revealed or 
man-made, able to do no better, looked up to the sun, 
the greatest light of which they knew. God’s hand 
was in that meeting of the old and the new. There is 
a tradition that when the Holy Family arrived at 
Heliopolis all the idols in the Sun Temple fell on their 
faces. Be that as it may, the pathos of the poor 


The Queen with Her Family in Fgypt. 315 

prayers of the Light worshipers moved the Divine 
Mercy to send them the Sun of Righteousness, and all 
the handiwork of Rhameses, at On, lies in great, grim 
silent ruins, while the faith that had its germ in that 
little outcast family is overspreading the earth. Alas, 
poor Egypt ! ” 

“Why poor Egypt ?” questioned Miriamne, wonder- 
ingly. 

“ Those living now are so like their ancients who, in 
fright and helpless doubt, sought to save themselves 
by placating both good and evil ; the light struggles in 
Egypt to-day, entering slowly and often retiring. Yea, 
poor Egypt, I pity thee ! But I digress. It is said 
that the Holy Family also tarried for a season at Mem- 
phis, on the Nile, the city where chiefly was practiced 
the worship of Apis^ the sacred bull. Thou remem- 
berest how Israel was nearly ruined by doing homage 
to a golden calf at Sinai ? That calf-worship was the 
same as the Apis-worship of Egypt. The Egyptians, 
in common with all mankind of old, earnestly looked 
for a manifestation of God in visible form — an incar- 
nation. Their priests practiced on their pitiful yearn- 
ings and credulity, and taught them to believe that 
their greatest god appeared from time to time under 
the form of a bull, which Avatars they, the priests, 
claimed that they only could discover. The 
Egyptians, highly esteeming endurance and pas- 
sionate vigor, readily accepted the animal pre-emi- 
nent in these things as the abiding place and ex- 
pression of their god. The Child Jesus, the 
token of a better faith, was fittingly brought, there- 
fore, to Egypt’s Temple of Apis. Thus the Light and 
Immortality confronted that typified grossly at Mem- 


3 1 6 Th€ Queen of the House of David. 

phis, and the incarnations that were as false as they 
were offensive, were brought face to face with the In- 
carnation sung by the angels. The devotees at the 
fanes of Memphis degraded man by preferring the 
beast. He that made man a little lower than the angels 
first, afterward exalted him to sonship by appearing 
garbed in the likeness of a man. Christ, at Memphis,* 
was to do what Moses did at Sinai;” 

I do not comprehend these words! ” 

“ As Moses ground the golden image worshiped by 
Israel to powder, so Christ came to overthrow and blot 
out of the world every vestige of the religions or be- 
lievings that exalts the animal and degrades the spirit- 
ual in man. He heralded the age of gold and fire.” 

“ And was Apis overthrown by the child? ” 

“ Not immediately ; that is not the way of Him who 
knows no haste; but in His own good time its fall 
came. Egypt, hoar with deep thinkings on the master 
problems of life, death, eternity, did much in distant 
times to color and express the beliefs of all peoples. It 
became a school of religious as well as the theater of 
some of their greatest, bloodiest conflicts. Let me re- 
call some of the steps. First, I’ll begin with the re- 
vival of the true faith under Moses, which was the 
revival of escape, the only way to preserve God’s peo- 
ple from utter defilement. Thou hast read in thy 
Holy writings how the conflict began between the king 
and Israel’s leader: 

And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron^ and 
said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land. 

And Moses said. It is not meet so to do ; for we shall 
sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord 
our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of 


The Queen with Her Tamity in Egypt. 3 1 / 

the Egyptians before their eyes^ and will they not 
stone us ? 

We will go three days journey into the wilderness^ and 
sacrifice to the Lord our God^ as he shall cornmand us. 

“ Why was Moses so anxious to get away so far ! 

“ ril show thee; that was then a mystery, now ex- 
plained. Egypt worshiped a bull devoutly ; the 
Israelites were commanded to sacrifice to God a red 
heifer. The color, red, was an antetype of the saving 
blood to be shed on red Calvary. Moses, methinks, 
desired to get away that he might reveal this sacred 
mystery, so far as he discerned it, to those to whom it 
was sent. Follow me now with pious, frank heart. 
The Israelites antagonized the customs of Egypt 
sharply by offering before God the finer, weaker ani- 
mal, and now, girl, as I read of Mary and her child 
waiting about Memphis, I discern the past and that 
present meeting. It seems to me that He who thun- 
dered to Pharoah ‘ let my people go * reappears in the 
form of the child, the pitying shepherd, seeking the 
lost sheep amid earth's offscourings. More, as I think 
of Mary, the beautiful outcast, following the fortunes 
of her Divine Child down into that dark land, and also 
remember how His blood finally crimsoned her life, I 
recall the red heifer offered on Israel's ancient altars. 
Mary, for the world's sake, through her maternity, was 
laid on the altar." 

“ Father Adolphus, you dazzle and yet convince me. 
How wonderful all this seems ! " 

I see the Holy Child in Egypt, the building nation 
of earth, as the founder of a new order of building. 
Now follow me, child. After the garden and the wilds, 
where primitive man abode, there came the Tabernacle 


5 1 8 The Queen of the Mouse of David, 

and Temple. When man enters into the benign influ- 
ences of social life, he begins building a house to shelter 
and seclude his own. When he takes God or a god 
into his society he builds a temple. If there be growth 
and culture he decorates his buildings, hideously at 
first, aesthetically after pi'aCtice. Presently he becomes 
a scientific builder and a philosopher. Then to him 
life is all building. He grasps the thought that he is 
the architect of himself, of his character, of his future. 
If his religious life is deepened he expresses all his 
philosophy, all his aspirations in monuments and tem- 
ples. Moses and Solomon, in tabernacle and temple, 
but repeated the deeds of Egypt. But Egypt built 
under the sun, the patriarchs under the Spirit. Egypt 
had done its best, reached the end of its resources, 
having filled the land from the Delta to the cataracts 
of the >Nile with pyramidial monument and august 
fanes. But building under the sun, in the light of na- 
ture only, was building in the dark, at least half the 
time. Christ, the architect of all that is enduring, con- 
fronted the achievements of those ancients as a merci- 
ful destroyer. He came to them to turn and overturn 
that, after the ruins, their mind be turned to a building 
upon and with the precious living Corner-Stone ! Try 
to remember all this. Christianity is on the eve of a 
new building age. The crusades are ended. Now for 
religious palaces! But these in turn will be thrust 
aside, that all may give themselves to build souls up 
for eternity 1 ” 

“ I am dazzled good father, indeed ; but oh, I can 
not remember all these things ! Tm like a child in my 
love for stories, and I can re-tell such to my mother, as 
I can not these deeper things you utter.” 


The Queen with Her Family in Egypt, 319 

I forgot, child. But we priests preach by habit 
everywhere ! ” 

“Tell me more of Mary and Joseph and Jesus. Were 
the Egyptians kind to them?” 

“ As kind as the followers of the Pharaohs to the 
descendants of Joseph ! No more. There was no more 
room in Egypt for Jesus at His coming than there was 
among His own people. But the God of Moses, ever 
the living God, though opposed, may never be thwarted 
nor killed ! ” 

“ Oh, now do not tell me these things, too deep for 
me; just tell me the simple story of the sojourn in that 
strange land.” 

“ So be it, girl. If I digress, recall me. They say 
that the Holy Family found in that land a few to accept 
them kindly. One such was a robber, who, happening 
upon them, was at first about to do them violence ; but 
he was restrained by the demeanor of the saintly 
mother, and his heart was all changed toward compas- 
sion of the little company. Instead of robbing, he gave 
them a temporary home in his mountain retreat. It is 
said that he was the one to whom the child of Mary, 
long after, while dying on the cross, companion in 
death with that same robber, gave repentance, with the 
promise of Paradise.” 

“ How good and natural ! ” 

“Then there’s another legend. It is that Mary and 
her loved ones were met in that strange country by 
one of the world’s pilgrims of pilgrims — a gipsy, who 
was a' sorceress. There’s a charming little dialogue, 
part in prose and part in verse, all about that meeting, 
which I have here. I’ll read it, The sorceress begins 
chanting; 


320 The Queen of the House of David, 

Gipsy — I come, I come from the land of the sun, 

From the dim, dim past of the far-off dawn ; 

The waif of the world, the froth of the sea, 

Of a clan that has been and ever shall be. 

Mary — God give thee grace and forgive thee thy 
sins. 

Gipsy — Ye are pilgrims, too ; no lodge for to-night. 

Ye are outcasts here in a flight of fright I 
But the mother charms and my heart say come. 

Ye may come ; shall come to my gipsy’s home. 

“ ‘ The gipsy, Zingarella, took the babe in her arms, 
but then suddenly broke forth into a mournful chant, 
as she held the hand of the infant : 

‘ Here’s a cradle song, and a tear and a moan ; 

Here’s a crown of thorns and a cross, when grown. 
Here’s a vale of blood and a black, black night. 

Here’s a flocking world and a rising light.’ 

^‘^And then suddenly falling upon her knees, the 
gipsy asked alms ; but this time, as never before, 
with both palms extended and craving neither silver 
nor gold, but eternal life. It was granted.’ ” 

“ Oh, father Adolphus, I’ll never forget this story.” 

‘‘Forget not, either, its simple lesson; the gospel 
comes to the very waifs of life, and so there is help 
for the sinning, wherever found, in the Holy Child ; em 
couragement to all holy longings in the meanest breast 
of the meanest woman, once within that circle, all 
radiant with the beautiful virtues of that Saviour’s 
mother.” 

“ Surely, I’ll treasure this lesson, which is both balm 
and heart’s ease.” 

I must go now, so rnust thou. I’ll send at noon tg 


The Queen with Her family in Egypt, 321 

the Reservoir, another parchment. Let one of the lads 
meet the messenger, It will be suitable for reading to 
thy mother, Rizpah. Be not so soon over-hopeful. 
We must proceed with her slowly. Those most need- 
ing the light will curse it if, coming too suddenly, it 
chance to dazzle. Israel still goes down all uncon- 
sciously to Egypt for gods, and the spectacle of man 
changing the invisible down, down, continues every- 
where. Slowly, we who would be faithful, must raise 
up His only true presentment. We must allure after 
us, with all wisdom and tenderness, those we would 
win, while striving ourselves to rise toward Divine ideals 
ever beyond and above us. God bless my little mis- 
sionary.” 

They parted ; and there were tears on Miriamne’s 
face ; but not of angui 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS. 

Day followed day, like any childhood passing ; 

And silently Mary sat at her wheel 
And watched the boy Messiah as she span ; 

And as a human child unto his mother. 

Subject the while. He did her low-voiced bidding — 

Or gently came to lean upon her knee 
And ask her of the thoughts that in him stirred. 

** And then, all tearful-hearted, she paused. 

Or with tremulous hand spun on — 

The blessing that her lips instructive gave. 

Asked Him with an instant thought again : ” 

OTHER, IVe another volume of that charm- 
ing story, full of wonderful things. Shall 
we peruse them to please our woman’s 
curiosity, to-night ? ” 

“Woman’s curiosity?” angrily ejaculated Rizpah. 
“ They say all women are inquisitive ; do they not ? ” 
“They! The fling of the ‘lords of earth!’ Eaten 
up with anxiety solely concerning themselves, they 
plunge into introspections and questionings pertaining 
to their own worth ; the ultimate of their own precious- 
ness, that they call philosophy. Our sex, in self-for- 
getfulness, ask questions out of sympathy, and with 
desire to help others ; that’s ‘ curiosity! ’ Faugh^ the 
fling is sickening! ” 




The Shadow of the Cross, 323 

“ My book is both curious and philosophical ; it’s in- 
teresting to both sexes therefore. Shall I read ?” 

“ On thy promise to tell me later whence it came, 
who its author, thou mayst read it to me.” 

Miriamne, perceiving that her mother was curious to 
hear the whole story, though the former placated her 
conscience by a show of indifference, responded : “ I’ll 
begin with the return of the wanderers.” So saying, 
she read : 

“ ‘ But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the 
Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, say- 
ing, arise, and take the young child and his mother, 
and go into the land of Israel : for they are dead which 
sought the young child’s life. 

“ ‘ And he arose, and took the young child and his 
mother, and came into the land of Israel. 

‘‘ ‘ Being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside 
into the parts of Galilee : 

‘ And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth : 
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the 
prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene.’ ” 

Nazarene ! ” Rizpah ejaculated, interrupting the 
reader. “ Does the word not taste like wormwood, 
girl ? ” 

The maiden replied, adroitly : “ We read the pagan 
inscriptions on the monuments about us without 
being harmed! Surely we may safely read these 
nobler peoples’ words and deeds.” So saying, the 
maiden continued : 

“ * Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at 
the feast of the passover. 

“ ‘ And when He was twelve years old, they went up 
to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. 


3 24 The Queen of the House of David, 

*^*And when they had fulfilled the days, as they re- 
turned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem ; 
and Joseph and His mother knew not of it. 

“ ^ But they, supposing Him to have been in the com- 
pany, went a day’s journey ; and they sought Him 
among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. 

“‘And when they found Him not, they turned back 
again to Jerusalem, seeking Him. 

“‘And it came to pass that after three days they 
found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the 
doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. 

“‘And all that heard Him were astonished at His un- 
derstanding and answers. 

“ ‘ And when they saw Him, they were amazed : and 
His mother said unto Him, Son, why hast thou thus 
dealt with us ? Behold, Thy father and I have sought 
Thee sorrowing. 

“ ‘ And He said unto them. How is it that ye sought 
me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s 
business ? ’ ” 

“That was rude, was it not, daughter? Was not his 
father’s business his mother’s ? He was young for such 
philosophy, so like that of tyrant husband.” 

“ He meant God’s business ! ” 

“ Then his earnestness was just. God first, kin 
after — mother or husband — say I. Did the mother 
gain-say him ?” 

“It is thus recorded,” replied the maiden. 

“‘And they understood not the saying which He 
spake unto them. 

“ ‘ And he went down with them, and came to Naza- 
reth, and was subject unto them : but his mother kept 
all these sayings in her heart. 


The Shadow of the Cross. 325 

And He increased in wisdom and stature, and in 
favor with God and man/ " 

“ Daughter, there was a fine spirit in that house ; it 
was enhaloed by the girl-wife’s character! No wonder 
that the son increased in favor with God and man ! 
He was able to cope with the doctors mentally, yet 
subjected himself to his mother. I’ll certify that he 
was wonderfully like his mother. The traits of the 
woman that bore him are prominent in every man of 
fine measure.” 

‘‘And are fine daughters, like their fathers,” laugh- 
ingly questioned Miriamne, as she glanced at a reflec- 
tion of herself in a metalic mirror suspended on the 
wall before her. 

“Ah, that depends on whether they have wholesome 
fathers.” Then, turning her eyes affectionately toward 
her daughter, Rizpah continued : “ Thou hast enough 
of Hebrew in thee to leaven thee. Yet, let me plant 
this in thy memory, my lamb, destined most likely 
some time to lie in anguish on the altar of maternity: 
Mothers determine beyond all else the fate of the world 
by determining beyond all else the characters of their 
offspring. Yea, girl, in the homes of industry, the bugle- 
calls of the soldier, the moving orations of the holy 
teacher, there are ever heard echoes of their cradle 
days.” Rizpah paused, drew a long sigh, and again 
broke forth : “ But, alas I men and women walk in 
pairs. How can the gentler of the two, alone, or 
opposed by the stronger, succeed? I’ve seen paired 
birds battle the sly serpent, creeping toward their bird- 
lings, victoriously; paired weakness triumphant over 
huge danger; and I’ve seen the lords of creation drop- 
ping serpents upon their own mates and their own 


326 The Queen of the House of David. 

nestlings ! If one would find a monstrous cruelty, he 
must needs seek in human homes ! ” Then the speaker, 
pausing, bowed herself, and sat swaying from side to 
side, with her hands over her eyes. Miriamne, accus- 
tomed to such action on her mother s part, and know- 
ing it was best when she was in such moods to leave 
her to herself, withdrew quietly. Yet, Rizpah seemed 
not alone to herself, for her mind was peopled with 
ghostly forms from her gloomy past ; all painful com- 
panions, but still courted by the woman in her periods 
of morbidness. Presently she slept ; the sleep of sor- 
row, that mercy balm of nature which comes to pained 
or wounded humanity as the power to grieve or ache 
is exhausted. The sleeper passed from consciousness 
of things about her, followed by the forms that had 
haunted her memory, and was soon among the wonders 
of dream land. Then came to her the sound of 
mighty contentions, and it seemed as if opposing forces 
were in conflict concerning herself. Rizpah, of the 
ancient, seemed to be trying to drag the dreamer 
toward seven crosses supporting seven stark forms. 
The babel of contending voices was silenced by others, 
exulting, as if in victory. There was a change ; the 
sleeper seemed to be lifted up from caverns unutterably 
deep, and suffocating, upon a ruby cloud, soft as down to 
the touch, but irresistible in uplifting. She was borne 
swiftly, over vast realms of space, toward a golden 
gate-way with tomb-like arch, whose cross-shaped 
portal swung invitingly open. A river of light spread- 
ing to a sea, and vibrating with sense-entrancing 
melody, flowed outward through the mighty gate-way. 
On either side of the portals, and moving along the 
river, were many glorious beings, The latter soared 


The Shadow of the Cross. 327 

on wings of mighty sweep, whose motions seemed to 
beat in accord with the melody of the flowing light, 
while, from within and without the gate-way, there came 
the sound of countless voices, all, as it were, mingling 
in the triumphant swellings of a grand anthem. The 
dreamer discerned in the anthem two words, repeated 
over and over, tirelessly: Glad Tidings!^* Glad 
Tidings ! ” “ Glad Tidings I ” The golden gate became 
rose-tinted ; the color deepening to purple and gold 
as down the stream of light there floated an island of 
gardens, and on the island appeared two human forms ; 
a youth and a maiden. The anthem “ Glad Tidings ” 
continued ; but sweeter, louder, deeper than before. 
And the sleeper perceived that on the wings of the 
glorious beings there were emblems ; red crosses, about 
each cross a ring of fire ; above the crosses, bejeweled 
silver cups ; then she knew that the twain on the island 
were bride and groom. The scene changed ; there was 
a consciousness of a flight of time. She looked again, 
and on the island she beheld a mother lovingly bend- 
ing over a babe ; over mother and babe tenderly bended 
a man, by the pride and the affection he expressed, 
attesting himself the husband and father. Rizpah was 
enraptured, and in her dream she prayed the scene 
might tarry. She was nigh being envious of that 
happy mother. But her prayer was denied her, for 
soon she was startled by a voice at her side, saying, in 
tones of mournful rebuke: “ Farewell, forever! " 

The dreamer, looking about, beheld in her vision, her 
ideal, Rizpah ; but the latter was wonderfully changed. 
Her eyes were dim and sunken ; her form dwarfed, 
bowed and age-shriveled. Suddenly the whole vision 
faded into thin air, ^nd Rizpah, of Bozrah, awakened. 


328 The Queen of the House of David, 

filled with condemnation. Before she fully realized 
that she had been dreaming, she cried out : 

Rizpah, oh, Rizpah, tarry a moment ! ” 

Silence was her sole reply. Little by little, as she 
collected her thoughts, she comprehended that her 
vision, while sleeping, expressed the facts of her life 
while waking. The heroine girl-wife of Nazareth, the 
newer, finer, surer, truer ideal of womanhood, was 
demolishing in the mind of the woman of Bozrah her 
former idol, the lioness of Gibeah’s hill. She knew 
this, for she found herself contrasting the two ideals, 
and in mind lingering by preference and with the 
greater delight about conceptions of the younger. 
Then began the struggles of the giants in her con- 
science ; clean truth against hoar prejudices; sweet 
mercy against bitter revenge ; Mary of Bethlehem 
against Rizpah of Gibeah. The matron of Bozrah, 
usually hitherto so self-sufficient, was changing. She 
felt that yearning inevitable in the career of most 
women for a confidant. She could not sleep ; she 
could not now go down to get inspiration by standing 
before the grim Rizpah-painting, in the lower room ; 
she was miserable, lonely and restless. 

Mechanically, she moved toward her daughter’s cham- 
ber, some way feeling that even a sleeper would be 
company to one so lonely as herself. Rizpah, alone, 
at night, in the grim, giant house, groping her way 
toward Miriamne’s sleeping place, was unconsciously 
illustrating her soul’s quest. She was in heart seeking' 
alone, and in the dark, some one to take the place of 
her demolished ideal. Had the queen of women been 
there, in person, Rizpah, then, would have welcomed 
her. She groped her way to the maiden’s couch, feel- 


The Shadow of the Cross, 


329 


ing that, as she believed, her daughter was pure and 
good and loving. Could the matron have analyzed her 
own feelings, she would have found that she was in 
part 'led toward Miriamne because the latter some 
way seemed like, or near to, the girl-wife who was sup- 
planting in the heart of Rizpah of Bozrah, the wild 
Rizpah of Gibeah. A cloud passing let a flood of 
silvering moonlight full on the sleeper’s couch, and 
Rizpah, feasting her eyes, murmured : “ I wonder 
if that woman of Bethlehem were not very like this 
maiden ? ” As the mother gazed on her offspring she 
presently began noting features in the sleeper’s face 
that reminded her of the absent father and husband. 
She recalled him as he appeared under the palms that 
night at Purim, and as he was that day he lay pale and 
bleeding in her all-giving arms. The whole past, that 
was delightful, came trooping up, and with it there 
came the full light of an old love revived ; a renaissance 
of that she had supposed buried forever. Soon the 
aged woman, all youthful again within, was mentally 
in hot chase after the pleasure she had parted from so 
hastily long years before. She was glad of her thoughts, 
for they were rejoicing; glad she was alone, for the 
thoughts seemed sacred. It was no use, had she willed, 
to resist ; so she just gave up to the impulse, and with 
a half-suppressed cry, passionately twined her arms 
about the sleeping girl, and covered the face of the 
latter with burning kisses. 

The maiden started up in affright, breaking the spell 
that swayed her mother, but only in part at first. 
Rjzpah was almost angered by the awakening, which 
caused the vision her soul was embracing to take swift 
flight. Her first glance seemed to say to the now 


330 The Queen of the House of David, 

awakened girl : “ Begone, intruder ! Leave me for a 
time alone with — ” but she recovered herself, and was 
silent. Yet her mind ran on after the vision. She had 
not been embracing the girl, but the girl’s father, in 
heart. Had he happened there then, he would have 
been all-forgiven, all-welcome. So wonderful the heart 
of one capable of deep loving as well as deep hating; 
so wonderful the nature of such a woman as Rizpah, 
when her emotions, aroused, spread their throbbing 
pinions to soar at the behest of revived affection. 
“ Human passion,” sneeringly some may say, and 
truly. But human passion is a gift of grace. When 
it travels along right lines, it quickens the one enriched 
by it to the noblest deeds. He whose name is Love 
came to earth through the Incarnation to show the 
splendor of human affection, working at its best in the 
kingdom of its finest displays — the home circle. The 
fate of Eden made men believe a lie, but Bethlehem 
refuted that lie for all time. Rizpah turned bitterly 
from the fiery, disappointing love she had experienced 
to stamp all loving, except parent love, a mockery. 
She had nursed her false creed, and suppressed her rebel 
heart by adoration of the wintry ideal of Gibeah. 
Now she was touched by a new influence, and it was to 
her as the touch of spring to winter-prisoned nature. 
For a few moments daughter and mother contemplated 
each other; the one as if dreaming, the other full of 
wilderment. Then the former quietly said: “I’ve 
been very nervous to-night. I’m quieter now, and will 
go to rest. Sweet dreams follow thee, daughter.” 

The maiden composed herself to sleep, and the elder 
woman passed out of the room. The latter, in going, 
perceived on the floor-slab a parchment, and bore it 


The Shadow of the Cross. 


331 


away with her. She said within herself as she did so : 

It is best for Miriamne that I know of her reading/’ 
But, after all, she was very curious to know all about 
the new matter, of which she had recently heard a 
part, on her own account. The writing, that of a mas- 
culine hand, ran as follows: 

“ Miriamne : — As I promised, I have herein recorded, for 
the help of thy memory, further facts about the Bethlehem 
Mother, Mary. Keeping constantly in heart the wonderful 
words of the angel Gabriel, she followed with constancy the 
wanderings of her Son as He went forth to heal and preach. 
She heard with pride and joy that a Dove of Peace from 
heaven overshadowed Him at His baptism in Jordan ; but 
immediately she was plunged into anxiety, for he disap- 
peared from the haunts of men in a prolonged absence. 
This was during the time of His temptation in the wilderness. 
He returned to gladden her, but immediately set forth to new 
trials, labors and dangers. The young Miracle-Worker was 
denounced and driven from among the people of His youth. 
Tradition points to the very place where his mother fell 
fainting, when she saw the people of Nazareth dragging her 
Son to a precipice by the city, with intent to cast Him down 
to death. At that place of the mother’s overcoming the 
Empress Helena builded the sanctuary called the ‘ Church of 
the Terror' But that loyal mother never wavered in her 
allegiance to her Son, but, shortly after these things formally, 
publicly, bravely, received baptism at His hands in Jordan, 
at Bethabara. Indeed, this act on her part evinced not only 
the faith of a disciple, but the zeal of motherhood ; her 
Son’s cause seemed to be failing, and she espoused it to 
strengthen it in its most trying hour. She was willing to 
dare all things to win for her Beloved a possible gain, how- 
ever small. 

“ The gathering storm grew darker about the Carpenter’s 
Son, and the leaders of the people were planning His destruc- 
tion ; but He pursued his work of healing and teaching 
serenely; His mother constantly hovering near him to en- 
courage Him. She heard that John the Baptist, son of 
Elizabeth, the herald of her own Child, had been slain be- 
cause be had been true to God. The harlots of the Court 


332 The Queen of the House of David, 

of Herod had procured John’s death, because that holy man 
had rebuked their vices. But even this shocking event did 
not overawe the mother of the Founder of the New Kingdom. 
She stood in splendid contrast with the murderers of the 
prophet. It was purity, almost single-handed, against lust 
corseleted by the nation ; two phalanxes ; one of few, the 
other of many ; but, as common in this world, each led by 
a woman. Mary, like a parent bird fluttering over her 
nestling, sought by the fowler, hovered around her off- 
spring. She exemplified the finest, fullest utterance of 
faith, ‘ Jusus only,’ by determining to break up the home in 
Nazareth, in order that all the family might keep near the 
beloved One in His journeys. So it happened that when He 
was near Capernaum, working Himself nigh unto death, 
they visited Him to persuade Him to rest. Of this it is 
written : 

' While He yet talked to the people, behold, His mother 
and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with 
Him, 

* Then one said unto Him, Behold, thy mother and Thy 
brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee. 

* But He answered and said u7ito him. Who is my 
mother ? and who are my brethren ? 

* And He stretched forth His hand toward His dis^ 
ciples, and said. Behold my mother aytd my brethren ! 

* For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is 
in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and 7notherl 

“To all He herein proclaimed the doctrines of His king- 
dom, self-denial, and though the words seem harsh, they were 
most kind, for by them He said, as it were, to His disciples : 
‘ Behold these all-sacrificing relatives of mine are twice rela- 
ted to me; by blood and by sufferings.’ It was, on Jesus’ part, 
a public adoption of His own family. As He had been pub- 
licly adopted from on high when He typically submitted tp 
death in His baptism, so when He beheld His mother, having 
forsaken all to be with Him, he proclaimed those that had 
elected to share His sufferings His kin indeed. The sword 
pf His suffering bitterly wounded her when the rabble howled 


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The Shadow of the Cross, 


333 


after the Healer, “ Thou wast born in fornication!' But He, 
amid all His engrossments, never forgot to minister to His 
mother as a courtly, reverent, loving Son. These words of 
a holy book not only speak of the workings of the provi- 
dence. of God, but assure us that He that uttered them was 
prompted to comfort His own widowed mother : ‘ But I tell 
you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of 
Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six 
months, when great famine was throughout all the land ; 

“ ‘ But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sa- 
repta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.’ 

“ And now for the present I close with all holy salutations. 

“A. DE G.” 

Rizpah was so engrossed with the matter of the let- 
ter that she scarcely observed the initials at its end. 
As she turned the letter over there fell into her lap a 
pictured parchment. It represented a woman, half 
kneeling and with arms outstretched toward a beauti- 
ful child, the latter balancing, and, as it w'cre, taking a 
first lesson in walking. “That woman’s face is some 
way very like that of my Mariamne’s in beauty and 
thoughtfulness,” soliloquized Rizpah. Then observing 
a tent in the picture, at one side and under the tent, 
the form of a strong, dignified man, she again scrutin- 
izingly exclaimed, “ In truth, that face is Harrimai’s ! 
How like my father! ” For some time she sat consid- 
ering the group, and then again spoke to herself : “Ah, 
I see, these are none other than the girl wife, husband 
and child of whom Mariamne has been reading ! But 
what an improper legend at the bottom ? 'A sword 
shall pierce through thine own soul also !' A sword has 
no place in that happy group ! ” And Rizpah still 
gazed at the charming presentment. Suddenly she 
started from her seat. “What’s this ?” she cried as 
^he traced a dark cross made by the shadow of the 


334 Queen of the House of David. 

child’s outstretched arms and reaching from his feet 'to 
the mother’s bending knees. “ I have it now ; the cross 
is the sword ! Some of the Nazarene heresy, the witch- 
ery of the ‘ Old Clock Man ! ’ ” Rizpah flung the picture 
from her as if it were a serpent. She thought she saw 
a paramount duty, and without an instant of delay she 
hastened back to Miriamne, this time in angry mood — 
Rizpah of Bozrah, the fanatical Nemesis of heresy. 

Here, girl ! Whence this book of devils ! ” 
Miriamne, in fright, leaped from her couch, and 
Rizpah, laying hold of her arm, half dragged the be- 
wildered, trembling girl to the adjacent apartment. 
“ These ? ” imperiously questioned Rizpah, as she 
pointed vehemently toward picture and manuscript 
lying together on the floor. 

The maiden, overcome by the suddenness of the 
stormy outbreak, spoke tremblingly, pleadingly : 

Oh, mother, forgive me if I’ve done wrong ! Father 
Adolphus, the old — ” 

“Oh, yes, the old wizzard ! he gave them to thee,’* 
interrupted the mother. “ Enough ! ’tis as I ex- 
pected ; the Christian’s doctrine of devils ! ” 

Miriamne reached forth, mechanically, to take the 
denounced objects, but Rizpah at once intercepted her, 
spurning them with her foot. 

“Don’t touch the leprosy! To-morrow we’ll hire 
some Druses beggars to burn them ! ” 

“ But, mother, they are not ours ; we must return at 
least the painting ; it cost great labor I ” 

“Leave that to me! Now, further and finally for 
thee, rash girl. I’ve commands. Listen ! Thou art 
never again to meet or speak to that hoar^-headed old 
wizzard, Von Gombardf” 


The Shadow of the Cross, 335 

But, mother — " 

“ No evasion nor compromise ! ” 

I can not treat the kind old man that way. He is 
so good, and all the people, Jews and Gentiles, love 
him,” pleaded Miriamne. 

“ Enough ! and, in brief, meet him or speak to him 
again, and I’ll disown thee! I’d drive thee, daughter 
of mine though thou art, out of my home to starva- 
tion and pray God to send all the plagues written in 
His book to haunt thee, while thy life remained, rather 
than tolerate heresy ! ” 

So saying, Rizpah fell upon her knees, as if even 
then to utter an imprecation. 

In terror the daughter ran to her, and shielding her 
eyes from the parent’s anger-distorted countenance, 
she pitifully cried : 

“Mother! Oh, mother! Don’t curse me! Save 
me ! save me ! ” 

The elder woman’s body swayed and dilated as if 
she were possessed of some furious demon, checked 
and muzzled, but struggling to break forth. Evi- 
dently the pathos of the daughter’s appeal touched 
some responding chord of mercy, for the mother re- 
strained herself and then suddenly arose and swept 
out of the bed-chamber. And yet Miriamne was not 
reassured ; she felt the fascination of dread. With 
trembling her eyes were riveted on the open door; her 
ears heard the heavy, stately, threatening, departing 
footsteps, and great misery overwhelmed her. She 
felt, if she could not express it, that the breakers of a 
mighty wrath were heaving and tossing in that bosom 
on which she had hitherto rested when in pain or 
peril. She knew the meanings of those wavy motions, 


33^ Queen of the House of David, 

so like those of the boa retiring for renewed attack, 
She saw them passing up and down the form of Riz- 
pah as the latter went out, her eyes burning, her body 
dilating. She had observed these things in her parent 
before, but never as now directed toward herself. 

In terror and anguish Miriamne fled out of the old 
Giant-house. There was relief and a sense of getting 
more truly under the sheltering wings of God in get- 
ting out under the serene canopy of heaven. So, often, 
the grief-stricken seek solitude, absence from all that 
has crossed and hurt, separation from all earthly, in a 
lonely appeal to the Holy and Loving. And so these 
two women, bound to each other by the strongest hu- 
man ties, needing, because of their isolation, each other 
supremely; after all, loving each other with a choice, 
tried love, willing each to endure any cross, even unto 
death, for the other’s weal, and both anxious to serve 
God loyally, went apart. They exemplified the cross- 
purposes and misunderstandings that beset and mar 
life’s pilgrims. They needed sorely, both of them, 
pilot and beacon ; some one to inspire as well as to 
exemplify all that is best in womanhood. The need 
was patent, but the remedy but dimly discerned. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE MISERERE AND THE EASTER ANTHEM. 

“Under the shade of His mighty wings. 

One by one 
Are His secrets told, 

One by one. 

Lit by the rays of each morning sun, 

Shall a new flower its petals iinfold. 

With its mystery hid in its heart of gold.'* 

“ But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon 
their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord the Veil 
shall be taken away." — ii Cor., 3 : 15. 

IDNIGHT and moonlight were in Bozrah, 
and midnight and moonlight were in 
Miriamne’s heart as she wandered out into 
the city. She did not see her way further 
than to know it must be some direction other than 
toward her home. That place all her life hitherto the 
dearest spot on earth, was become her dread. As 
she moved away from it she did not look back. It 
seemed to her that there was an angry cloud 
enveloping it ; a cloud holding a furious thunderbolt. 
As she went on, she rapidly passed through a series of 
painful feelings ; those that naturally beset the run- 
away girl. First she felt very reckless, then, surprised 
at her recklessness, very lonely as if every tie 

that bound her was broken, and then affrighted as she 



33^ The Queen of the House of David, 

thought of confronting the great, strange, selfish world 
alone. A woman so young and so inexperienced ; a 
bird with half-fledged wings, thrust out of the parent 
nest into a storm ; altogether a pitiable creature. In 
the moonlight of her conscience, after a time, she 
dimly discerned a line of duty. It seemed to her that 
it were best for her to turn toward the church of 
Adolphus, and she resolutely turned thither. Before 
the resolution she had walked aimlessly ; now with 
an aim and with some soul comfort. She did not 
have power to analyze her feelings ; had she had 
such power she might have discerned the fact that 
she was turning toward something her reason told her 
was very good, therefore the soul comfort came as the 
harbinger of conversion. As yet the moonlight within, 
like that without, was not strong enough to resolve the 
shadows in and about her. She knew, and that alone, 
certainly, that she was miserable, wounded, bruised. 
So storm-beaten, in a flight from the ancient Rizpah 
and her counterpart, Rizpah of Bozrah, the maiden 
naturally turned toward the place where there seemed 
rest, escape ; the haven known to all the troubled and 
sick of the Giant city. With a great throb of joy she 
at length drew nigh the Church of Adolphus. All 
was silent about it ; but its up-pointing spire, emblem 
of eternal, aspiring hope, rest on a rock, stability — in 
grand contrast with the grim ruins God’s revenges had 
scattered in dire confusion all around, assured her. 
She remembered then that she had heard some say 
that they had been blessed beyond all telling, in hours 
of trouble, by the services of that sanctuary. She per- 
ceived that the church, from spire to portal, was 
flooded with silvering moonlight, while all beyond and 


The Miserere and the Easter Anthetn. 339 

around it was in shadows ; then she wearily sank down 
by a small porch near the great entrance. As she 
sank she moaned a broken prayer : “ Oh, God, take 
me ! Utterly overcome, she v/ished fora moment for 
death's release ; and death’s similitude, fainting, some- 
times sent in mercy, came over her. How long she 
lay unconscious, she knew not. She was suddenly 
aroused by the stroke of a muffled bell ; she opened 
her eyes and beheld forms gliding out of the darkness 
into the chapel. For a moment she felt a superstitious 
fear that chilled her. She vaguely remembered that 
that bell had been wont to toll thus solemnly when 
there was a funeral. Simultaneous with the thought 
she questioned. Was she herself dead ? But she 
quickly collected her thoughts and then comprehended 
that there was to be a midnight service in the cl apel. 
She remembered that Father Adolphus was wont to 
have such, at intervals. She longed to taste the joys 
within of which she had heard, and was at the same 
time restrained, lest by entering she should in some 
way part from her mother and the faith of her child- 
hood forever. Conscience and desire waged war with 
each other, and the girl was too much excited to stand 
still or to reason clearly. She, therefore, mechanically 
moved through the open doors with the throng, out 
of the darkness into the light. Once within the 
place the grateful sense of peace and the splendors of 
the various appointments, beyond all she had ever 
before experienced, engrossed all her thoughts. The 
lofty arches, the well wrought pillars, the niches, in 
which were here and there saintly paintings, the lights, 
disposed so as to produce an impression of seriousness 
and rest, the hum of subdued voices, all came to her 


34^ *The Queen of the House of David. 

as balm. At the east she beheld a silver altar, velvet 
draped; on either side of it lofty columns with golden 
plinths and capitals; just back of the altar, in a light 
that made the face of the presentment more beautiful, 
she discerned the image of a woman, splendidly 
robed and jewel-crowned. For a moment she thought 
she was looking upon one living, for the crowned 
woman was so beautiful, so much a part of the place, 
and seemed so inviting. She contrasted her, in mind, 
with the terrible picture of Rizpah. Just then, with 
little persuasion, she could have run toward the 
woman, back of the altar, and plead for sympathy. The 
feeling was momentary. Little by little the truth 
dawned upon her, and she thought, “ this represents 
the beautiful Mary of Father Von Gombard." Then 
the moonlight within the maiden’s soul began to 
change into dawn. She gazed and gazed, and as she 
was so engaged, her thoughts took wing for heaven and 
her soul cried within itself as a babe for its mother. 
She knew not her way, but she knew she needed and 
yearned for a guide as pure as heaven and as serious as 
God. Her meditations were interrupted when she 
perceived the place growing darker about her, the 
forms of the congregation now becoming like so many 
moving shadows. All around her bowed their heads 
as in prayer, and, impressed by the solemnity of the * 
place, she did likewise. There was a long silence. 
The hush of death was over the place, the only 
sign of life the stealthy movements of a tall, dark- 
robed personage, who glided about the chancel. The 
tower bell tolled again, once, twice, thrice ; its mufided 
tones, as they died away, being prolonged, then 
caught up and borne onward with organ notes which 


The Miserere and the Easter AntheM. 341 

filled the trembling air with entrancing melody. Then 
the organ tones softened and died away into subdued 
minors. “ How like the sighings of autumn evening 
breezes, before a rain,” thought Miriamne. The place 
again was full of melody, the organ being reinforced 
by lutes and dulcimers, played by unseen hands. But 
the worshippers were silent ; all bowed, aparently, in 
prayerful expectation. It was all new and exceed- 
ingly impressive to the maiden, and she was carried 
along by the spirit of the hour. 

The draped figure passed down from behind the altar- 
lattice and moved, on tip-toe, from one to another of 
the worshipers. Miriamne was curious, yet frightened. 
“ What if he came to me?” The question she asked 
herself made her tremble. If it were the priest, she 
was sure he would be very kind and yet how would she 
explain her absence at that hour from home? She 
was alert to hear the words he spoke to others near 
her, and when she did, she took courage. They 
seemed just such as she needed. She knew the voice ; 
it was that of Father Adolphus, in the tenderness and 
triumph of one filled with unearthly hopes and heav- 
enly sympathy. The cadence of his voice accorded 
with the plaintive tones of the organ. Miriamne’s heart 
fluttered like a caged bird, back and forth, from yearn- 
ings to fears, as the priest drew nearer and nearer to 
her. She yearned to hear spoken to herself his balm- 
like benedictions ; she feared, lest recognizing her, he 
should reprove. He seemed about to pass, as if not 
perceiving her. Now more intensely she yearned and 
dreaded than before. She could not restrain herself, 
and so she sobbed aloud like a child in pain. The 
priest tenderly placed his hand on her head and softly 


34- The Queen of the House of David. 

said : ^Hf we confess our sins He is faithful and just to 
forgive and to cleanse us from all iniquity.'' 

‘‘Oh, Father Adolphus,’' she sobbed, “is this for 
me?’' 

The priest started, but quickly recovered himself, 
arid again spoke in the same tone as before, his voice 
rising in accord with a triumphant strain of the music: 

died that we might live ! " Miriamne clasped and 
passionately kissed his hand. 

The place had become darker, little by little ; the 
organ tones meanwhile growing deeper and more sol- 
emn, while voices from an unseen choir blended with 
them. Miriamne, recognizing, from the words of the 
singers, the penitential Psalms, followed the worship 
with deepened interest from the fifty-first to the fifty- 
seventh of the sacred songs. They expressed the 
pains and tempests of her own soul as they voiced 
sublimely sin-beseeching pardon. The Christian and 
Jew were for the moment made akin. The man at the 
organ was a master of his art, and while handling the 
keys of his instrument, he also played on the hearts of 
his hearers. He was aiming to reproduce Calvary, its 
scenes, emotions and meanings, and he succeeded. The 
devout assembly, following the motive and movement 
of the composition, was led mentally to realize the 
journey from the Judgment Hall to the Crucifixion. 
There were measured, mournful, dragging tones; 
Jesus bearing his heavy cross; then followed discord 
and confused uproar, the voices of a mob. Later on 
there were dirges and silences, followed, as it were, by 
blows and ugly cries. The nailed hands, the uplifted 
cross and the sneers of those who passing wagged their 
heads, were all revived to the imagination. With 


The M isercre and the Easter A nthem, 343 

these sounds, from the first, there ran along a sustained 
minor strain, sometimes nearly obliterated, at other 
times ruling. It was as mournful as the sigh of the 
autumn winds amid the dying leaves and night rains. 
In the color and movement of that minor there was 
feelingly expressed the deep, poignant, undemonstra- 
tive sorrow of the mother that followed the thorn- 
crowned and scourged Son to his martyrdom. Then 
came a long silence, broken only by the fleeting whisp- 
ers here and there. The worshipers were in earnest 
prayer. They were at the cross, as the friends of Jesus, 
in earnest communings. Again the organ broke in on 
the silence ; there was a rush of air as if some one 
passed in rapid, terrified flight, followed by a sound 
like swiftly departing footsteps ; the fleeing disciples 
came to the minds of the worshipers. Then the 
organ tones deepened to the rumblings of approaching 
thunders — heralds of a climax of catastrophies, while 
above the rumblings a solitary, piercing voice, which 
ended in a thrilling, agonizing cry : “ My Gody my Gody 
why hast thou forsaken me E* Following this came 
peal upon peal from the organ ; louder and louder ; 
discord and confusion ; ending in mighty crashings. 
The rocking earth ; the earthquake ; the rent vail — 
all the tragedy of Cavalry — was presented in awful 
realism to the minds of the kneeling worshipers. 
Every light had been quenched, the temple within was 
as dark as a tomb, and not a sound could be heard but 
moans and penitential weepings. To one any way 
superstitious and not knowing the intent of the pre- 
sentment, the whole would have seemed very like the 
realm of the lost, filled with damned souls, making piti- 
ful last appeals to mercy ; but to the worshipers there 


344 Queen of the House of David, 

came a vision of a stark, dead form on a cross, standing 
out vividly against the darkness of Calvary around 
that cross the amazed, condemned crucifiers and a few 
disciples, the latter whispering about the burial. 
The realism was oppressive and some present cried out, 
as if by the bier of a loved one, while some fainted 
away. But the Healer was there. Father Adolphus, 
with a voice full of tears, with the pathos of Him that 
went down to preach hope to “ the spirits in prison," 
spoke to the penitents of peace, light and glory through 
faith. As the old Missioner went from one to another 
the lights of the chapel, one after another, reappeared. 
Presently the aged consoler stood by Miriamne : “ Hast 
thou felt the power of the Cross, my child?" 

“ Oh, Father Adolphus, I do not know ; I only know 
I’m very wretched ! " 

“ ‘ Godly sorrow worketh repentance ’ ; but thou wert 
as happy as a bird thou thoughtst and saidst a few 
days ago ? " 

“ I was a bird — a girl then ! I’m a woman now. 
I’ve lived years in hours." 

“Any sudden trouble?" 

“ Oh, yes, a tempest and tempests." 

“ Possess me of all, daughter." 

“ I can not. It’s every thing. I seem so useless and 
nobody loves me ! " 

“Thou art too young to be morbid and art greatly 
beloved by ONE." 

“Oh, I can not come to Him. I’m under His ban ; 
I do not honor my parents. How can I ? One, my 
father, I never knew. I’ve seen him through my 
mother’s eyes, and to despise. Now I am afraid of 
her^ and my terror is poisoning the loye I once felt for 


The Miserere and the Easter A nthem, 345 

her. Oh, Fm miserable, lost ! Father, Father, save 
me ! ” And the wretched girl flung her arms passion- 
ately about the old priest. 

^‘Ah, girl, I can not; but there is One that can 
save.” 

Save, save me— one so lost ? ” 

“ He is a ^ Prince and a Saviour. ’ ” 

do not know Him. He can not love me, and 
one must love me to save me ; Fm so needy and 
wicked,” 

“ Well said, and He is love. Only believe.” 

I don’t know how to believe.” 

“ Like a poor, sick babe, all need, thou, amid thy 
weaknesses, hast power at least to cry.” 

“Cry? What shall I cry?” 

“ ^ Help thou mine unbelief.’ ” 

Slowly, by wisely simple gospel-counsels, the aged 
teacher lead the penitent girl Christward. As they 
communed the congregation departed, and an attend- 
ant lighted the lamps. Presently the music of the organ 
again broke forth ; but now in cheerful and triumph- 
ant strains. Miriamne listened, and as she did, a 
change came over her countenance. Her dawn was 
coming. 

“Art looking up, daughter? ” 

“ This music is like spring morning melodies, and Fm 
singing to it, in soul, I think.” 

“ It is the morning song of souls ; the angel’s greet- 
ing to Mary. Observe the words ; first the ‘ Hail 
Mary ’ before the wondrous birth ; then the serene as- 
surance of the mourning mother at the grave, ‘ He is 
not here. He has risen.’ ” 

“ Ah, Adolphus, how blessed are you Christians in 


34^ The Queen of the House of David. 

a religion all mercy, all songs, all love, and all nearness 
to God ! ’’ 

“ ‘ Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden.’ ” 

“ I would I could hear Him say as much to me ; but 
lean not go, come, nor do anything else ; not even stay 
away; I’m a bit of wind-drifted down!” 

“ Come all ye heavy laden,” measuredly replied the 
priest. 

Oh, if there were some one to bear me onward ; 
blind and weak as I am ! ” 

He carries the lambs in His bosom ! ” 

** Alas, I feel myself cowering away from His Holi- 
ness, when I attempt to approach Him alone ! ” 

“All to Him must go alone, in prayer as in death. 
He meets with a plenteous mercy the confiding 
ones who come by sorrows’ thorny path, as He will 
meet the needy in judgment who have only faith’s plea. 
Fear not to go alone ; solitude has its benefits, and He 
is sole accuser or excuser. The terms of His rebuke 
are eternal secrets, as are the terms of His forgive- 
ness. They lie alone, between the Blesser and the 
blessed.” 

“ Is the lovely woman there, your Mary ? ” 

“Yes, child.” 

“ And she was the mother of this Saviour ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And was He like her ? ” 

“ He is, eternal ; the ‘ I Am ’ — not was nor shall be — 
always.” 

“ Oh, yes ; but is He like the woman ? ” 

“ In my soul I so believe, to my joy ; for she was 
godly, therefore, God-like.” 


The Miserere and the Easter Anthem, 347 

Then I can love Him, trust Him, and Tm sure 
He’ll pity me, at least.” 

“Amen,” piously ejaculated Father Adolphus. 
Then he said : “ Now child, rest ; it’s too late to go 

home. My sister, yonder, will care for thee till morn- 
ing, and then thou must hie to thy home. Thou yet 
mayst be its peace-maker and blesser.” 

Easter-tide came. All nature was serene and seemed 
to recognize the memorial of holy, happy association. 
Father Adolphus was astir early to ply his industry of 
mercy for the suffering. “ Poor, unhappy land, and un- 
happy because so blind ! Oh, man, man, how thine eyes 
are holden, while fatlings, birds and flowers rejoice ! ” 

“Ah, unbenumbed by sinning, they, like the cattle in 
Bethlehem’s stable, are first to see the Saviour born of 
woman. ‘ Praise ye the Lord, beasts and all cattle, 
creeping things and flying fowl. They shall not hurt 
nor destroy in all my holy mountain ; for the earth shall 
be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters 
cover the sea.’ ” Thus soliloquized the old priest as he 
passed toward well-known haunts of misery in the 
Giant City. 

Miriamne was called to a late breakfast by the kindly 
sister of Adolphus. The aged woman said little, but 
every act seemed freighted with motherly interest, and 
was like balm to the heart conscious chiefly of loneliness 
and wretchedness. The maiden longed to have the 
elder woman solicit her confidence, but the latter did 
not respond to the mute, though manifest desire. “ It 
is better so. God’s work is best done in an hour like 
this, when He alone is left to searching and counsel.” 
So thought this aged minister. Experience under 
Father Adolphus had given her this wisdom. 


348 The Queen of the House of David, 

The coming of evening brought to the little religious 
house its master all cheerful, yet well wearied by a 
day of ministering for God. 

“Art here yet, daughter? ” was his first greeting. 

“ Yes ; where else should I be ? I’m friendless, lost, 
unhappy ; even to a vague longing for death ; but I’m 
frightened at that longing, since it seems as if I was as 
friendless in Heaven as on earth. Oh, it’s awful to be 
a two-fold orphan ! ” 

Just then the church-bell rang forth a merry 
peal. 

Miriamne looked a question, and the old priest con- 
tinued: “Hark, it’s the paean of peace, declaring that 
the Day Spring from on high has visited all those in 
the shadow of death.” 

“ Another service ? ” 

“Yes, the best of all. We cling to the hours ‘^f this 
day and battle night away in joy, thus declaring our 
hope in the resurrection, the end of all nights. Lis- 
ten, that’s my organ, the one I myself made.” 

Miriamne listened, and there was wafted to her an 
Easter anthem ; at intervals containing the sentence : 
“ Thou that takest away the sins of the world have 
mercy.” 

As they passed into the chapel, the maiden re- 
marked : “ There are more women here than there were 
at the other service ? ” 

“ The other celebrated death ; the chief pain-maker 
of woman’s life ; for they live in love whose ties are 
constantly sundered by man’s last enemy. They are 
allured by the beautiful things, the joys, the hopes of 
our Easter service. It proclaims eternal victory over 
the destroyer.” 


The Miserere and the Easter A nthem. 


349 

How beautiful the woman’s form back of the 
altar, good Father, to-night.” 

Our moods within appear to us on objects with- 
out. So strangely the Kingdom of Heaven, beginning 
in the soul, spreads everywhere. It is natural, though 
to think that the resurrection time brought all joy to 
the childless mother: to this one as it did and does 
bring a thousand times to other mothers, like her be- 
reaved.” 

The Easter service went onward, a succession of 
joys; the march of a pilgrim army with the goals in 
view ; the triumph of truth, the crowning of life, the 
final discomfiture of death. Miriamne brightened as 
the service advanced ; then came a fullness of joy ; then 
a reaction and she finally fell into a sleep akin to a 
trance. It was the resting of the wounded on the way 
of healing. There was a Divine overpouring and a 
babe-like sleep of perfect trust ; from this the voice 
of the priest aroused her! 

“ Miriamne seems to rest.” 

“ Oh, such a dream ! I followed the songs to the 
sky and wished my body had wings. God lifted me up 
and I slept, dreaming myself into His presence. I 
thought I was in heaven.” 

“ Thou art near it, child.” 

“Oh, this wonderful calm 1 What makes me so 
happy ? ” 

“ Hast thou any token ? ” 

“ I do not know : I murmured as the people sang 
these words : ‘/ know that my Redeemer liveth ; ’ as I 
murmured that, every thing, got brighter, and I felt no 
more under the yoke and load ! ” 

“ He is thy Vindicator. ’Tis well.” 


350 The Queen of the House of David. 

Then tears coursed down the old man’s face. 

And so the girl that fled out of her home, away 
from the phantom of Rizpah of the ancients, away 
from her mother ; a pilgrim ; all wants, all yearnings^ 
in a few brief hours, had found a city of refuge, an 
everlasting hope and was in soul serenely resting. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


A HEROINE’S PILGRIMAGE. 

There is a vision, in the heart of each, 

Of justice, mercy, wisdom, tenderness 
To wrong and pain and knowledge of the cure ; 

And these embodied in a woman’s form. 

That best transmits them pure as first received.” 

—Robert Browning. 

“ Behold, the handmaid of the Lord : be it unto me ac- 
cording to thy word.” — Mary. 

IRIAMNE, the day after her conversion, at 
evening, was sitting in the portal of the 
church at Bozrah, musing. “Oh, how I 
thank Father Adolphus for showing me the 
way to this peace ! ” The western sky, to the maid- 
en’s rapt imagination, seemed very like the gate of 
Heaven, and in her meditations she exclaimed as if 
talking to those in glory, yet near to her: “ Mother of 
my Saviour, I need a mother ! Thou and I, two 
women, loved of the same Lord, shall we not evermore 
be friends ? ” Then the stars glittered through the fad- 
ing sun light like night-lamps, set along the parapets of 
that far off city, and the maiden felt as if heaven’s 
doors were being shut. She was oppressed with a 
sense of being left alone, and thereupon cried out, 
“Oh, Jesus, Jesus, do not leave me here in the dark; 
Oh ! thou mother, sainted and happy, may I not be 
where thou art until rnorning?” The ory or prayer of 




35^ The Queen of the House of David, 

the girl, having in it much of the poet, little of the 
skilled theologian, was one likely to be censured by 
those adept in stately forms, and yet it was very 
natural. Miriamne was but an infant in experience 
and had yet to learn that after the resurrection came 
Pentecost ; then the Ascension. Steps like these are 
in the believer’s experience ; conversion is a rising from 
the dead to be followed by the assuring work of the 
Holy Spirit, then Heaven. But the soul quickened from 
the charnel-house of sin and inducted, not only into a new 
inner life but into a new fellowship, hungers for more 
and more. Hence, it is a common thing for the young 
convert to wish to die, and be away from life’s turmoils 
and defilements at once and with the glorified, imme- 
diately, forever. It is as if the disciple would pass at 
once from the sepulcher directly up the Mount of As- 
cension. In this spirit Mary Magdalene pressed forward 
to embrace to her human heart the newly risen Saviour 
that morning when he tenderly restrained her. There 
was something for her to be and do before the final rest 
on the Divine bosom, in unending rapture. “ Touch 
me not ; for I am 7iot yet ascendedf as if He would 
say, “ I myself, have other work yet, before the eternal 
gates are lifted up for my triumphal entrance as the 
King of Glory.” “ Go to my brethren^ and say unto 
them^ I ascend unto my Father and your Father T The 
master words were, “Go;” “say.” The load Jesus 
put on His followers was the same in kind, though infi- 
nitely less, that He took on Himself. Some way it 
was love burdening with blessing, for He that in dying 
agony sent the Rose of His heart, Mary, to the home 
of John instead of at once to Paradise, knew surely 
that then for her that was best. “ To go ” and 


A Heroine s Pilgrimage. 353 

“ tell ’'was best for Magdalene, as to stay and work for 
a time is best for all : 

So Miriamne’s prayer, though so worded that it 
would have been censured by the learned churchmen, 
was heard in heaven, and He that said : “ My peace I 
leave with you,” ministered, all unseen by human eye, 
to that lamb, bleating alone amid the dark giant cas- 
tles of Bashan and the darker castles of fears that 
hover not far from each new-born of His Kingdom. 
She passed from repining, from morbidly wishing to 
die and from thoughts solely of her own weal, to the 
second stage of experience ; that stage, where the 
young convert is influenced with a burning zeal to tell 
of the blessings found and thereby win others for the 
Saviour. Miriamne soon felt desire inexpressible to run 
and tell others of her joy. Then her mind recurred to 
her father, living somewhere far to the westward, just be- 
neath where she had fancied the gates of heaven were 
a little while ago. “ No, no ; I cannot go yet ! I must 
stay here and do something. Oh, I’d be ashamed to 
go to heaven and leave my father, my mother, my 
brothers, my people in their misery!” As she thus 
spoke she pulled her hand quickly down by her side. 
The motion like to one pulling away from some leading 
influence. A voice at hand spoke : Behold, he that 
keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” 

Miriamne, with a slight startled exclamation, turned 
to see whence the voice and with joy beheld Father 
Adolphus. 

“ Oh, dear Father, I’m glad you came' this way ! I 
want to tell you above all others how happy you made 
me.” 

Solemnly and tenderly the old man replied : ‘Not 


354 Queen of the House of David, 

unto us, oh Lord ; not unto us, but unto thy name 
give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth’s sake.’ ” 

“Yes, He has done it ; but you helped, good teacher ; 
and I am so happy! Oh, I do not know myself! I 
feel so changed. I’m growing wiser, happier and 
stronger every minute.” 

“ If so', then. He that called thee, daughter, had a 
purpose.” 

“ I know it ; see it ; feel it. I’m called to help my 
people ; to bring together Sir Charleroy and Rizpah.” 

“ Say ‘ my parents ’ ; it’s more filial.” 

“Yes, but it’s so strange. I call them in my mind 
now all the time by their names. It seems as if I be- 
longed to another family; that of Jesus, Mary and the 
Angels.” 

“A child of the Kingdom, indeed! When thy 
parents are converted, the family tie will be revived. 
Thou dost feel the love of heaven ; the great eternal 
family bond, as Christ when he said: “My mother and 
my brethern are these which hear the word of God 
and do it.” 

“ But if I hope to bring my parents together I must 
go first to my father and persuade him. I know my 
mother will object to the journey. Can I disobey her 
and still please God? ” 

“ Ask God. I have fot thee, and already see thy 
way. I have already acted in this matter.” 

“ I can not forget the law in that I learn that ‘ He 
that setteth lightly by his father or his mother is 
cursed.’ Among our noble ancients, the Maccabees, 
the disobedient child was even stoned to death.” 

“ But thy salvation puts thee under the Gospel 
although, under the Law even parents had duties ; they 


A Heroine s Pilgrimage. 355 

were forbidden to make their children walk through 
the idolatrous fires. What says Jesus to thee? ” 

I do not know whether it be His''^spirit or not ; 
yet all the time I hear a voice within me saying: 

‘ These twain shall be one.’ ” 

“ I see thy soul abhors this actual divorcement of 
thy parents. Oh, how some play hide and seek with 
their consciences around forms as these do ; not comfort- 
ing but hating each other; not bearing together their 
common burdens ; wide seas between them, yet fancy- 
ing they have violated no law of God, because they 
have not asked the law of man to do what it never 
can, truly, proclaim two, neither having committed 
the deadly sin, apart.” 

“This separate living is their constant sin?” 

“ He that starts wrongly repeats the wrong anew 
each time that, by act or thought, he approves the 
wrong first done. Sin’s name is truly legion.” 

“What an awful thing is sin ! ” 

“True, daughter. It blinds its victims here, and its 
wages hereafter is death.” 

“ That’s why I fear to disobey my mother ; what if 
it be sin to do so ? ” 

“The command, my child, is ‘children obey your 
parents — in the Lord'^ 

“ What does ‘ in the Lord ’ mean ?” 

“ ril tell thee, my little catechumen ; there comes a 
time to some youths, in pious life, when duty to God 
compels disobedience of parents ; as it came to Jona- 
than, son of Saul. God is Father and mother to the 
righteous, and His law must be first. Mary left home 
and every thing, first and last, to follow Jesus, Her 
way was the Christian’^, 


356 The Queen of the House of David. 

“ I thought once I was right in obeying my mother 
without question. Now I think I may be right in dis- 
obeying without question. The old and the new law 
are at war within me.” 

Amid these Bashan hills Paul, the Holy Saint, 
traveled, led of God from thinking that directly 
opposite to his former beliefs, the truth. Jesus met 
him then on the way. to Damsacus, in power and in 
glory ; Paul had been for a long time a profound 
scholar, a Pharisee of thy people. On this journey, 
enlightened by the spirit, he asked and learned sincerely 
to ask, the question of questions in this life ; ‘ Lordwhat 
wilt thou have me to do f* I beseech thee to ask it 
daughter, as thy hourly prayer.” 

“ Did God answer Paul? ” 

“Yea.” 

“How?” 

“ The blessed apostle tells all ! ‘ When it pleased 

God who separated me from my mother’s womb 
to reveal His son in me, that I might preach among 
the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh 
and blood, * but I went into Arabia.’ Neither wife, 
friend, child, nor Ephesian Elders, clinging with tears, 
could hold him back from duty. Then he preached 
through this wild country.” 

“ But Em not Paul, and only a woman.” 

“ ‘ Only a woman ! ’ She out of whom went seven 
devils, a woman, was the herald of the resurrection, 
and the church ; God’s glory in the earth, is likened 
unto a woman. Oh, when a woman is clothed with 
the Sun, there is nothing more resplendent, and as for 
power, naught prevails against her. It seems to me if 
thou dost emulate her who said to God’s messenger; 


A Heroine s Pilgrimage, 357 

^ Be it iLiito me according to thy word' thou wilt go ere 
long to thy father ; but thou must now return ! ’’ 

“Return whither? This spot of all earth alone tole- 
rates me ! ” 

“ No, that’s changed ! Thou art the Child of a King. 
Go home ; ay, rise to tell of the One that hath risen in 
thy heart.” 

“ Dare I ? Must I ? ” Miriamne soon answered, by 
action, her own questions. 

The young woman started homeward ; at first with 
fearfulness. Then there came to her great calmness 
and courage, as she thought : “ If I was wrong ingoing. 
I’m right in returning. My mother scared me from 
home into God’s arms. I can tell her that.” The new 
life had quickened within her the springs of affection. 
In all her life before she had not been so long apart 
from her mother. She said to herself, “ I’ll just spring 
into her arms, when I meet her ! ” And she would 
have, if permitted. 

The mother with a face like a stone, emotionless, 
saw her approach. When the latter stood by the 
threshold, the parent freezingly said: ^‘Well; what 
dost thou want here ? ” 

A dozen answers pressed for utterance. Some like 
those shaped by an angry or reckless girl ; some such 
as might come to a politic woman, having recourse 
ever to cunning against the odds of power. The first 
thoughts were not of love, the last not of truth. In an 
instant Miriamne remembered her new personality. 
She was the missionary ! She dared, being right, face 
anything, even her mother’s wrath; but in her soul 
she dared not let bitterness rule. She knew as well 
that she dared not tell the truth so as to convey a 


358 The Queen of the House of David, 

false impression. She might have done so once ; but 
not now. “ Lord what wilt thou have me to do ? ” the 
golden prayer was on her lips and she had instant grace 
to say quietly : “ I was doing no wrong.” 

“ Was where ? ” 

How brave the girl had become. Her reply was 
calm and courageous. “ I was, for a time praying to 
God ; but safe, for'God was with me in the Spirit and 
good Father Adolphus in the flesh.” 

“The Old Clock Man!” 

“Yea.” 

“The wizard! I so suspected. Here is more of 
this bad work;” and Rizpah angrily thrust before 
Miriamne a scroll. “That fawning, heretic-priest came 
here and left this with mock piety saying: ‘ I, being the 
mother, might read it ! ’ I had no humor to converse 
with him; but of thee I demand the full meaning. 
Now, no avoidance, girl ; dost thou hear!” Miriamne 
was not only not abashed, but in her new-found cour- 
age took the letter, and without a quaver of the voice, 
read : 

“ TO THE GRAND MASTER OF THE TEMPLE, LONDON. 

“ Faithful Knight and Son of the Church : 

“ Greeting — I herewith commend to thee and thy most 
pious and chivalrous offices, my beloved catechumen, 
Miriamne de Griffin, of Bozrah. She is the truly noble 
daughter of an English nobleman, now living somewhere in 
London. He is, I fear, prodigal toward God, and an exile 
from his family ; perhaps in the distress of bodily ailment, 
most grievous. Prompted by holy desires, this young 
woman, whom I commend, may come to thy city in the 
hope of finding her father, for the compassing of his restor- 
ation to health, his family and righteousness. Had I the 
power, I would command the thousand liveried angels, said 
ever to attend the Holy Virgin, to encompass ever this 


A Heroine's Pitgr image, 359 

sweet and pious daughter of Knight de Griffin; but being 
impotent to direct the angel guard, I serenely commit my 
daughter in the spirit, to the watch, care and chivalrous 
regard of thyself and thy companion knights. 

“ All saints salute thee. My benediction be on thee. /« 
pace. “ Adolphus Von Gombard." 

“And thou dost think thou couldst go alone, half 
round the world, find that renegade wanderer, bring 
him here, make him good, tolerable, and re-unite our 
family ? Thou ? '' Rizpah stopped, her voice almost 
at the pitch of a scream ; her utterance ending in a 
groan that died with a hiss. 

Miriamne responded calmly : “ I can not tell what I 
may achieve, that is with God ; but I know what I 
must attempt. The path of duty is clear, and I enter 
it unwaveringly.” 

“ And I, as unwaveringly, forbid.” 

“ I expected this command, and in all love for thee, 
my mother, shall disobey it.” 

Rizpah turned pale, her eyes became leaden. She 
was for an instant like one stunned by a sudden, heavy 
blow, and disarmed. The little submissive child that 
she deemed her daughter to be, was suddenly trans- 
formed before her; changed in fact to a firm, strong, 
brave woman. But the elder quickly recovered, and 
while clearly perceiving that violence would be futile, 
had recourse to the last arm of the half-defeated, to 
ridicule. 

“ Disobedience, oh, I see, this is a part of this supe- 
rior religion of thine and that old ‘ Old Clock Man ; ' 
this Gombard, ha! ha! It was always so. New reli- 
gions please by freeing from law ! What an old idiot 
that Solomon of the ancients ! He taught ‘forsake not 
the law of thy mother.”’ 


360 The Queen of ike liouse of David;. 

“ Mother, I have two parents and obligations td 
both. I find our home shattered, and I for most of 
my life half orphan. I have thereby great and lasting 
loss. My brothers and you suffer as well. I am led of 
God, in a desire to seek a remedy for our troubles. I 
would gladly obey your edicts, but first I must obey my 
Maker and King.” 

“Girl, false teachings lure thee to a curse.” 

“You know mother, you yourself cursed the memory 
of Herod not long ago, when we wandered amid the 
ruins at Kauawat and saw the remnants of his image, 
as angry Christians left it, shattered years ago. That 
day you said a curse on him that broke up families or 
made innocents mourn, whether he lived anciently or 
now.” 

“Well?” 

“ I say a curse, bitter, on every act that breaks'Up 
or beclouds a home ! But not I, it is God that 
curses ! ” 

Rizpah was speechless and withdrew from the room, 
motioning silence with a stately, angry wave of her 
hand. She was defeated in the debate, but not sub- 
dued. The next day Rizpah renewed the subject, but 
this time adopting the tactics of kindness. 

“ My darling, since yesterday I’ve been thinking thy 
good intentions worthy of approval for their spirit of 
love. I’d approve thy purpose did I not forsee that 
the great sacrifice on thy part would be fruitless. Thy 
father and I could never live together ! If thou 
foundst him thou couldstnot love him as he is, and, as 
for reforming him, that were impossible ! ” 

“ I must try.” 

“ ’Tis useless ; a woman as wise, as patient, and as 


A tJeroine s Pilgrimage, 361 

earnestly seeking that result as thou, gave years of de- 
votion, deep as her life, to that purpose. They failed 
utterly.’' 

“Was that woman my mother?" 

“Yes, listen. In the glorious romances of youth I 
met Sir Charleroy. I pitied him coming to our house a 
defeated Crusader, a refugee. Pity gave way to admi- 
ration. There were few about me whom I could love ; 
I had no mother. In some way I gave him her part of 
my heart first, then the rest of it. I admired him for 
his soldier-like bravery. He was older and vastly wiser 
than I. All my ambitions seemed to be satisfied in 
climbing up with his thoughts. He was able to teach 
me a thousand things I never before heard of. Heart 
and mind were intoxicated. I unconditionally surren- 
dered all to him, with an almost worshipful devotion. 
I could not have made a more complete committal if 
my God had come in human form and sought me for 
His everlasting companionship. I fled with him from 
my father’s home. In the wild Lejah and this Bozrah 
we lived for a time together, until he changed from 
lover to hater ! Here my unnatural love was murdered 
by inches. I can now reason better than then, and yet 
the past seems like a nightmare. Thy father knew a 
great deal, intended to be kind but did not compre- 
hend the dangerous responsibility of taking to his care 
such a passionate, imaginative, impressible creature as 
I was. He did not realize that there is a period in a 
woman’s life when she may be literally made into an- 
other being. In every generation women are walking 
by thousands through a sort of passion week. I walked 
in mine, ready to be molded almost into any form ; but 
he tried to have me profess to be a Christian, live like a 


3 ^^ The Queeri of the House of David. 

devotee of Astarte and be as Anata of the Assyrians 
to her husband, but the echo of himself. I might have 
done all this, but he tried to hasten me by force, and 
then all fell to ruins like those amid which we lived. 
That glorious structure of love which romance built, 
became the saddest ruin here in those days. 

“ I was then a young woman, just entering the peril- 
ous, exhaustive periods of maternity. I was weak and 
nervous, and sometimes may have tried his patience, 
but I thought then that he ought to have borne with 
me. I am now certain he ought. After he left, I was 
for a time glad. I had renewed freedom from argu- 
ments, rasping and crossing of purposes. Then I felt 
the martyr’s joy. I felt I was left, a girl-wife, with 
babe in arms, to battle alone, for God’s sake, for thy 
sake. It seemed often that the arching heavens 
above were smiling upon baby and me ; that sustained 
me. But, daughter, my moral training had been as 
thorough as has been thine. My idea of the solemnity 
and life-bindingness of the marriage tie could be no 
higher than it was. I believed it divine to be forgiv- 
ing, and finally was impelled to turn from our broken 
home, to find, if possible, my recreant spouse. Domi- 
nated by convictions of duty, and often by a revived, 
wild, soul-possessing love for Sir Charleroy, I went to 
far off, strange London, I hunted out Sir Charleroy 
and was ready to be all things, any thing for his sake. 
He received me tenderly, only to soon change to 
cruelty. Your brothers were born there, adding to my 
load new burdens; but I was without help. He never 
seemed to study my comfort, pleasure nor needs. In a 
nation of strangers, with strange ways, I was alone. 
He knew scores ; I knew only that one man. Repulsed 


A Heroine s Pilgrimage, 363 

by him I drank again and again the depths of misery, 
having no heart in all the great city to counsel nor 
love me. Then thy father took delight in vice. I was 
crucified for months ; my only comfort communing in 
memory with the Sir Charleroy that had been, the 
tender, loving, brave Palestine knight. In those dark 
days, I found there was a place where persecuted 
Israelites secretly met ; a sort of cleft-rock synagogue. 
Thither I went for consolation. I was wedded anew to 
my religion, because it was mother, father, husband 
and all to me ; when there was none but God left to 
me. I came to long, daily, for the time to go to that 
meeting place of a few Hebrews just to pray God for 
two things. One, the most pitiful of prayers for a 
mother, that He would care for my children and keep 
them from being like their father ; the other that I 
might be permitted soon to die ! Thy father grew 
constantly more brutal, taciturn and fitful ! At last I 
had an explanation. I found by unmistakable signs that 
he was going mad. I saw further that that madness 
took the shape of a murderous antipathy for me and 
the children. Under the advice of the rabbi, leader of 
our people at London, I determined, as the only 
alternative, to return to our Bozrah home and leave 
him to the care of his companion knights. In blank, 
leaden grief I left London. I came to these scenes of 
desolation with a heart as broken as any that ever sur- 
vived its pains. I could have died. I returned, my fate 
fixed, the cup of my retribution for having disobeyed 
my parent full. Once a queenly, blithesome girl, 
petted and loved by hundreds, changed to a lone, sad 
widow and prematurely old. A wife without a hus- 
band, a Jew without the recognition of my people. 


364 The Queert of the House of David, 

How utterly isolated ! Thou know’st the rest, daugh- 
ter.” 

The two women were silent. Miriamne was moved 
by the revelation to a wondrous pity; but her royal 
sentence : Lord^ what wilt thou have 7 ue to do f ” 

seemed to be written on the air just before her uplifted 
eyes. 

Then questioned the elder, And thou my daughter, 
a woman, wilt not also leave me ? It’s a woman’s heart 
that pitifully questions.” 

“ I’ll never forsake my mother ! ” 

“And never leave?” 

“ Except, only as God commissions ! ” 

“ Oh, say that thou wilt never leave me in life ! I 
said this in cruel pains for thee, Miriamne. Miriamne, 
daughter, here by the couch in which thou wert born, 
I plead.” So saying the mother dropped on one knee, 
flung one arm over the bed by her side, and stretched 
out the other toward her daughter. 

The maiden was profoundly moved, her loving heart 
seemed to be swelling within her, all her emotional na- 
ture ready to exclaim, “ I’ll tarry,” but again her royal 
sentence: Lord^ zvhat wilt thou have me to dof'* 

controlled. 

“ Loved mother, I am not my own. God has bought 
me, and in His dear love I go. The story of sorrow 
I’ve just heard confirms me in my purpose. I’m called, 
I know, to workout a new and brighter day for mother 
and father ! ” 

Rizpah was both pained and chagrined, and burying 
her face in her pepulum moaned, “ God, pity me ! ” 

“ He does, I know, and sends a daughter to bear thee 
proof, my mother.” 


A Heroine s Pilgrimagi, 365 

The mother, as if not hearing the latter words, con- 
tinued, growing vehement : “ The necromancy of that 
Nazarine priest has hastened the workings of he- 
redity’s curse ! Girl, thy father’s distemper is taking 
root in thy brain ; thou too, art going mad ! This’ 
scheme of peril, foredoomed to failure, is worthy of a 
bedlamite only. Oh, Jehovah, my shepherd, thou 
lead’st me now by bitter waters! ” 

Mother, you called me at my birth, ‘ Marah,’ ‘ bit- 
terness.’ You know how the people murmured by the 
bitter springs of Marah, in the wilderness, but God 
showed Moses a tree that sweetened the water. I’ve 
seen that tree and felt its power. It grows on the 
mount called Calvary, and is immortal.” 

“ Be considerate now, daughter, since I meet thee 
kindly. To one not believing thy Nazarene doctrine, 
it is useless to appeal with Christian figures.” 

“Well, mother, you remember Jeptha ? He had a 
daughter, and she was all influential with him.” 

“ He was the cause of her death, as thy father will 
be of thine.” 

“ But Jeptha’s daughter became a heroine.” 

“ When dost thou depart ?” questioned Rizpah. 

“ Next Lord’s day I say my last prayers in Bozrah.” 

“ Farewell. As well now as later. I can not bear a 
long parting, and after to-day we shall speak no more 
of this.” Miriamne was amazed by the sudden 
change. 

“ Do I go in peace?” 

“Ah, daughter, what a question? A mother’s undi- 
minished love will follow thee even unto death, wing- 
ing a thousand daily prayers to Israel’s Shepherd in thy 
behalf. Yet, I shall condemn thy going, rebuke thy 


The Queen of the House of David, 

disobedience, perhaps frown upon thee, and even say, 
‘ I disown thee ! ' But, though I do all this, there 
will be tears in my voice and kisses in my heart, for 
my first-born. All my authority as a mother cries 
against thy going, and all my mother-heart embraces. 
I’ll not kiss thee as thou departest, but waft hundreds 
after thee when thou art gone. I’m not Rizpah, de- 
votee of Rizpah now. I’m only a woman, a parent, a 
voice uttering two decrees ; one of the head and one of 
the heart ! ” 

Miriamne was inexpressibly rejoiced by the words 
she had heard, as they betokened the breaking down 
of the strong opposition to her purpose; but she could 
not trust herself further than to say, as she affection- 
ately embraced her mother, ‘‘And I can only cry as 
did that noble Bethlehem mother to God’s messen- 
ger : ‘ Be it unto me accordmg to thy word' He leads, 
I follow.” 





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CHAPTER XXV. 

CONSOLATRIX AFFLICTORUM. 

Furl we the sail and pass with tardy oar 
Through these bright regions, casting many a glance 
Upon the dream like issues and romance 
Of many-colored life that Fortune pours 
Round the Crusaders till, on distant shores, 

Their labors end.” 

—Wordsworth. 

IRIAMNE’S welcome at the ** Retreat of 
the Palestineans,” at London, was most 
cordial. The Grand Master of the returned 
knights and his wife received her as a 
daughter; the companion knights vied with each other 
in efforts to serve the child of their once honored 
comrade, Sir Charleroy de Griffin. But the maiden 
never for a moment lost sight of her mission. No 
sooner had she been bidden to rest than she ques- 
tioned as to her father’s welfare. The Grand Master 
attempted to assure her that she might recuperate after 
her journey, but she only the more urged her desire to 
be taken to her parent at once. 

Worthy Master, dalliance would not be rest, but 
torture, to me. Being now so near my father, I’m 
filled with a ruling, all-exciting longing to see him, at 
once ! ” 

“ Be patient, daughter, for a little season ; all is done 
for him that can be. The princely revenues of th^ 




368 The Queen of the House of David. 

knights of Europe are at the behest of each of our 
veterans, as he hath need.” 

“ Ah ! but your wealth can not provide him what I 
bring — a daughter’s love ! ” 

“And yet, daughter, since you press me, I must ex- 
plain that he is under a cloud which would make thy 
offering vain at present.” 

“ There is no need, kind commander, to make evasive 
explanations. I have been forewarned of my father’s 
troubles of mind.” 

“ But he is violent at times, and we are compelled to 
keep him secluded in the asylum of our brotherhood.” * 

“ Good Master, that but the more increases my ardor 
to hasten a meeting with him. I want to try the cure 
of love upon him ; I’ve all faith in its efficacy. When 
may I go ? ” 

The foregoing was a sample of Miriamne’s words 
each day. Her appeals touched all hearts and finally 
over-persuaded the medical attendants, who, in fact, 
began to fear lest refusal would unsettle the maiden’s 
mind. She was all vehemence and urgency on this 
subject. 

The meeting was a sorrowful and brief one. 

She was not prepared for such a spectacle as her 
father presented, and her cry, “ Take me to him,” was 
changed to one more vehement now ; 

“ Take me away ! ” 

Terror supplemented her utter disappointment. To 
both feelings there was added a sense of humiliation. 
She imagined her return to Bozrah, empty-handed ; 
the possible gibes of her mother and others. Her 
great faith seemed fruitless and her enthusiasm ebbed. 
Yhen she began to question within herself whether gr 


Consolatrix A fflictorum, 369 

not, after all, the new faith she had embraced was not 
a splendid illusion! She was in “Doubting Castle,” 
with “ Giant Despair,” and the mighty, impelling 
question, “What wilt Thou have me to do ?” little by 
little lost its grip on her will. It had seemed to her 
the voice of God ; now it seemed little more than the 
echo of words heard in a dream. She was moved now 
by a desire to get away from something, but she could 
not define the thing. Certainly she desired to escape 
her disappointment, but not knowing how, she sought 
to get away from its scene. If she could have run 
away from herself she would have been glad to have 
done so. She fled from the asylum, as soon as night 
came to hide her flight. She had not strength to go 
far, and the Asylum park of many acres of lawns and 
groves, afforded her solitude; that that she now chiefly 
desired. The night the desolate girl thus went forth 
was a lovely one ; a reflection of that other night of 
sorrow when she fled from the old stone-house home 
to the chapel of Adolphus at Bozrah. And the mem- 
ory of that night returned to the girl with some com 
soling. Again she looked up to the firmament and 
was calmed by the eternal rest that seemed on all 
above, and again she yearned to go up further to the 
only seeming haven of righteousness and peace. 

Then came the reaction ; the prolonged tension had 
done its work, and the young woman dropped down on 
the earth. How long she lay in her blank dream she 
knew not. If during its continuance she in part recov- 
ered consciousness, she had no desire nor strength to 
rise or throw off her weakness. 

Ere long her absence was known at the Grand Mas- 
ter’s and an eager search was instituted. Foremost 


370 The Queen of the House of David. 

in the quest was the young chaplain of the knights, 
and his quest brought him first to the object of search. 

“Can I aid my lady?” said the chaplain, in kindly 
tones., standing a little distance away from her, in part 
through a feeling of delicacy akin to bashfulness, and 
in part fearing lest by any means he should affright her. 

The young woman lay motionless ; her eyes closed ; 
her face as the face of the lifeless. Receiving no an- 
swer, the man questioned within himself : “ Is she 
dead ? ” Fear emboldened him, and he essayed active 
assistance. Delicately, gently, firmly he raised up the 
prostrate woman. She seemed to realize that some 
one was assisting her, but she was .very passive. Her 
head, drooping, rested on the young man’s shoulder, 
and she sighed a weary, broken sentence : 

“ I’m so glad you came. Father Adolphus ! ” 

“ Not Father Adolphus, but one rejoiced to serve a 
friend of his.” 

The maiden was silent a few moments, as if listening 
to words coming to her from a distance, through con- 
fusions. Memory was struggling to re-enforce semi- 
consciousness. Then came comprehension ; she real- 
ized the presence of a stranger, and, with an effort, 
stood erect. Her eyes turned on the chaplain’s face 
with questionings, having in them mingled surprise, 
timidity and rebuke. The man interpreted her glance 
and made quick reply : 

“ At my lady’s services, the Chaplain of the Pales- 
tineans. We are all anxious at the Grand Master’s 
concerning yourself.” 

“ Anxious for me ! ” She found words to say that 
much, and hearing her own words she recalled her 
recent thoughts of herself^ as one being very miserable 


Consolatrix A fflictorum. 


3 / 


and very worthless. She turned her eyes from the 
young man toward the woodland, in the darkness ap- 
pearing like a gateway to black oblivion. She yearned 
to bury herself in the oblivion utterly, and her looks 
betrayed the thought. The youth gently touched her 
arm, saying: 

Despair has no place here ; the Palestineans van- 
quish it.” 

She then looked down toward where she had been 
lying, both nerves and will weakening. It seemed to 
her a bed, even on the earth, were inviting, especially 
so if she could take there a sleep that knew no waking. 

The young man had ministered to his fellow-beings 
long enough to have become a good interpreter of 
hearts. He discerned the thoughts of the one before 
him, and offered prompt remedies, words wisely 
spoken : 

‘‘ Our faith makes us all hope to see our guest happy 
ere long.” 

Then she gave way to a flood of tears. The tears 
moved the man to exercise his professional function, 
and forgetting all else he spoke as a comforter to a 
sorrowing woman. She listened, but, except for her 
sobs, was silent until he questioned : Shall I stay to 
guide back to the ‘Refuge,’ or return to send help?” 

She answered by turning toward him a face pale and 
blank, lighted alone by eyes all appealing. He in- 
terpreted the look and continued : “ I’ll tarry to aid. 
Shall we now seek the ‘ Refuge ? ’ ” 

Then she exclaimed, “Alas, there seems no refuge 
for me ! ” 

“ The troubles of Miriamne de Griflin enlist all 
hearts at this place, I assure you.” 


372 The Queen of the House of David, 

And this, your kindness, with your happiness ever 
before me, but makes to myself my own desolation 
more manifest ! Ah, I’m but a hulk in a dark tide ! ” 

“ Lady, say not so, I beseech you. Look, there ! ” 
Languidly, mechanically, she turned her eyes in the 
direction the speaker pointed ; then suddenly drew 
back from sight of a white apparition, standing out 
boldly from a background of dark shrubbery. Her 
nerves all unstrung were for the moment victimized by 
superstitious dreads. 

“ Only, calm, pure marble ; a fear-slayer ; not fear- 
invoker! Look at its pedestal!” assuringly spoke 
the chaplain. The maiden did as bidden and slowly 
read, repeating each word aloud : Sancta-Maria-Conso- 
latrix-A fflictorumT 

“ By easy interpretation : ‘ Mother of Jesus, consoler 
of the sorrowing ! ’ ” responded the young man. 

Ah, like all consolations nigh to me, this is only 
stone and set in deep shadows! It cannot come to 
me ! ” 

“True, yon form is passionless stone ; but the truth 
eternal, which it emblemizes, is living and fervent.” 

“Life and fervor? Death and sorrow submerge 
both ! ” 

“ There is mother-love in the heart of God ; to one so 
nearly orphan as my friend, it must be comforting to 
look up believing that in heaven there are fatherhood, 
motherhood and home ! This is the sermon in yon 
stone.” 

Then the chaplain gently, reverently drew the sorrow- 
stricken maiden toward the “ Refuge ” and she fol. 
lowed, unresisting. As they moved along, she essayed 
to seek further acquaintance with her guide. 


Consolatrix A fflictorum. 


373 


May I know the chaplain’s name ? ” 

Certainly ; to those that are intimates, * Brother ’ 
or Friend; ’ for such I’ve renounced my former self 
and name.” 

“ But if I should need and wish to send for you ? I 
might. I could not call for ^ Brother.’ ” 

“Ah, I’m by right, ' Cornelius Woelfkin;’ yet the 
names are misnomers, since I’m not kin to the wolf, 
nor am I ^ a heart-giving light ’ as my name implies ; at 
least if I give light it is but dim.” 

The meeting of the young people, apparently acci- 
dental, was in fact an incident in a far-reaching train of 
Providences. The young woman was in trouble and 
needing such sympathy as one who was both young 
and wise could give ; the young man was courteous, 
pure-minded, wise beyond his years, free from the con- 
ceits common to young men of capacity, and being a 
natural philanthropist, naturally sympathetic. The 
young woman was at the age that yearns for a girl 
friend, and needs a mother’s counsel ; the young man 
had much of his mother in his make-up ; enough to fit him 
to win his way into the confidence and fine esteem of 
a refined and trusting young woman ; but not enough 
to make him effeminate. Somehow he exactly met 
the needs of Miriamne’s life. He could advise her as 
sincerely and wisely as a mother and companion her 
as affectionately as a girl friend. Having neither girl 
friend nor mother, the young chaplain became both to 
her. 

They were both impressible and inexperienced in 
the matters that belong to the realms of the heart, in 
its grander emotions ; therefore with a charming sim- 
plicity they outlined their intentions and the limita- 


374 Queen of the House of David. 

tions of their relations. They assured each other, 
again and again, probably in part to assure themselves, 
that they were to be very true and very sensible young 
friends. Their converse often ran along after this 
manner. 

“ We understand each other so well ! ” 

“ Yes, and are so well adapted to each other ! " 

“We have had too much experience to spoil this 
helpful relation between us, by giving away to any 
sway of the romantic emotions.” 

“ There has seldom been in the world a friendship 
between a young man and young woman so exalted 
and wise as ours is.” 

They agreed that she should call him “ brother,” and 
he should call her “ sister.” At first they said they 
wished they were indeed akin by ties of blood ; 
though in time they were glad they were not. In 
this they were like many another pair who have had 
such a wish, and in their case as in many another like 
it, the wish was a prediction of its own early demise. 

Among the works of art in the park of the Palestine- 
ans was a commanding bronze of Pallas-Athene, the god- 
dess believed by her pagan devotees to be the patron- 
ess of wisdom, art and science. She was the Virgin of 
the Romans and the Greeks, their queenly woman, 
deemed by her wisdom ever superior to Mars, god of 
war. She was represented bearing both spear and 
shield ; but these as emblems of her moral potencies. 
In a word, she was the result of the efforts of those 
ancients to express a perfection that was virgin and 
matchless, because too fine and exalted to have an 
equal. Between the “ White Madonna” and thisMin- 
nerva. Chaplain Woelfkin and the Maid of Bozrah often 


Consolatrix A fflictorum. 


375 


walked, back and forth, in very complacent conversa- 
tions. They desired themes, the ideals afforded them ; 
they were in a frame of mind that delighted in Utopi- 
anism, and the effigies of the women guided their day- 
dreams. Youth, quickened by dawning, though as yet 
unperceived, love, naturally begins building a Pantheon 
filled with fine creations. That is the time of hero- 
worship in general ; afterward comes the iconoclastic 
period when every idol is cast down to make place for 
the only one that the heart crowns. Cornelius praised 
sincerely Miriamne, when she said she would be as the 
Graeco-Roman goddess — very wise, very pure, very 
strong. Day by day, he believed she was becoming 
like Minerva. Then he thought it very fine for the 
maiden to emulate the goddess in every thing, even her 
perpetual virginity. Again, walking near the Madon- 
na and discoursing of her as the ideal of womanhood, 
as the mother, the minister, the saint, the maiden said 
she would emulate the latter ; the chaplain in his heart 
prayed that she might. 

Once he finely said : “ A pure, patient woman is God’s 
appointed and best consoler of the afflicted. Miriamne, 
be like Mary, and Sir Charleroy will find restoration.” 

The young woman was encouraged by the words to 
increase her efforts in her father’s behalf. Now she 
did so not only because prompted by a sense of duty, 
but because filial love seemed a fine ornament for a 
maiden. Birds in mating-times put on their finest 
plumage ; men and women do likewise. The chaplain 
was a humanitarian by profession, and naturally joined 
the maiden in her efforts for her father’s recovery. So 
their thoughts and their works ran in parallel lines. 
They lud unbounded delight in their companionship 


3/6 The Queen of the House of Davido 

and common efforts. This delight they innocently 
explained to themselves as the natural result and 
reward of their fine, exalted, frank, wise, brother- 
like, sister-like friendship. In hours of their su- 
premest satisfaction they generously expressed sorrow 
for the world at large, because so few in it knew how 
to attain such bliss as they enjoyed. In a word, they 
were a very fine and a very innocent pair, a complete 
contrast with Rizpah and Sir Charleroy at Gerash. 
The latter took their course under the torrid influences 
of Astarte of the brawny Giants, the former moved 
forward charmed and led by those things that were held 
to be the belongings of the fine women whose statues 
graced the park of the Palestineans. Miriamne asked 
wisdom later of her elect counselor, and he advised 
her to send letters to Bozrah urging her mother to join 
her in London, in efforts in behalf of their insane kins- 
man. 

The young man very wisely argued : He is a frag- 
ment, flung out of a wrecked home ; his perturbed mind 
is clouded by the wild passions of a misled heart. 
We must balance his brain by calming his heart. He 
is filled with hatings, and love alone is hate’s cure. If 
the past losses be recovered, he must be brought back 
to the place of loss.” 

Miriamne wrote to her mother, glad to please her 
counselor by so doing, and yet almost hopeless of gain- 
ing any answer that was favorable. The maiden re- 
newed her visit to her father’s lodge in the asylum. 
She was not permitted, nor did she then desire, to see 
her parent. She shuddered when she remembered the 
one dreadful meeting of the beginning, and was con- 
tent to sit outside the door of his cell or keep, day by 


Consolatrix Afflictorum. 


377 


day, to perform such little services as she could. Some- 
times she would call the insane man by his name, or 
title; sometimes she would call out Father, would 
you like to see Miriamne ?” or “ Father, your daughter 
is here.” At other times she would sit near his door 
singing Eastern songs, especially such as she had 
heard were favorites of her parents in their younger 
days. 

Days passed onward, and there appeared no result 
beyond the fact that when she was thus engaged the 
knight became very quiet. At the suggestion of Chap- 
lain Woelfkin, she changed her method, and began in 
hearing of the knight a recital of the history of Crusader 
days. In this she was encouraged, for an attendant 
told her that her father each day, when she began, drew 
close to his barred door to listen. As she came near 
the time of the Acre campaign, the knight’s face was 
flushed with interest. Having followed the narrative 
up to the fall of the city and the flight of Sir Charle- 
roy and his comrades, she paused. Then she was sur- 
prised and delighted at once, for the incarcerated man 
in a voice both calm and natural, ejaculated the words: 

Go on ! ” 

Miriamne would have rushed to the prison door had 
not Cornelius, who stood not far away, motioned her 
to remain seated and to continue. For a moment she 
was at a loss how to proceed, but then she bethought 
herr.elf of an experiment. She described by a kind of 
a parable the career of her father, as follows : 

“ And the noble knight, after years of illness, was 
found by his loving daughter. Under her kindly care 
he recovered, and at her earnest request he returned to 
his home in Palestine. There he spent many happy 


378 The Queen of the House of David. 

years with his reunited family, consisting of a wife, 
daughter and twin sons. He is living there now, and 
all that family agree that theirs is the most happy and 
loving home on earth.'’ 

“ It’s a lie ! a lie ! ” almost shouted the lunatic. 
“ Sir Charleroy is not there. He went mad ; the devil 
stole his skull and left his brain uncovered to be 
scratched by a million of bats. That’s why he went 
mad ; I know him ; he went mad, and is mad yet, and 
you get away with your lying ! ” 

The daughter fled in terror at the succeeding out- 
burst of wild profanity ; but she was still rejoiced, that a 
chord of memory had been struck. It gave a harsh 
response, yet it gave a response, and that was much. 
She continued her efforts as before. The interviews 
were not fruitless, but they were costing her fearfully. 
She complained to no one, yet her youthful locks, in a 
few months streaked with silver, told the story of 
suffering. 

One day there was delivered at the Grand Master’s a 
huge package directed to herself. Miriamne, filled 
with wonder, called help to open the case. •Just under 
the cover she beheld a letter. She knew the hand- 
writing. It was her mother’s. Her heart took a great 
leap, and as a flash of joy there ran through her mind 
the thought : 

Mother has sent something to help. Perhaps it’s 
her clothing, and she is coming ! ” 

Tremblingly Miriamne read the epistle. How 
formal : 

“ Miriamne De Griffin : — Thou went’st without my 
leave. Do not return till sent for. Thou left’st a loving 
mother for a worthless father, and this is a daughter’s 


Consolatrix A fflictorum. 


379 


reward. Thou dost say Sir Charleroy is mad. I knew 
it, and think that the curse is descending on thee. 
But I doubt not the man has cunning in his madness, 
and has prompted thee to inveigle me into his toils 
again. Once he had me in England, and there he put 
me on the rack of his merciless temper and lust ! 
Shame on him for that time ! Shame on me if he have 
opportunity to repeat it ! I send thee a comforter. 
Put it before his eyes, and tell him that the'woman of 
Bozrah is before him. Tell him that she, like Rizpah 
of old, is true to the death to her sons, and, while 
waking, never forgets to curse the vultures ! ” 

No love was added. There was no name appended. 
Miriamne felt like one disowned. She dreaded to 
examine the contents of the case ; but a servant, who 
began the opening just then, spread it out. As she 
suspected, after she had read the letter, it was the (to 
her) hateful picture of ancient Rizpah. 

It was evening, and the maiden sought a refuge 
from her troubles in the park. It was, on her part, 
another flight from the face of Rizpah of Gibeah ; 
another seeking of solitude from man that she might 
gain that sense of nearness to the Eternal Father 
under the calm, silent stars of His canopy. It was 
like that flight from the old stone house of Bozrah to 
the chapel of Father Adolphus that she had made 
long before. 

The maiden’s course brought her to the “ White 
Madonna,” and there she found her counselor and 
brother, the chaplain. He had heard that Miriamne 
was desponding that day, and had bent his course 
hither, confident that the ''Consolatrix Afflictorum'* 
would prove a tryst. The scenery around Pallas- 
Athene was the finer by far, but to a troubled heart 
there was the more allurement in the place where the 


380 The Queen of the House of David. 

love of heaven was expressed. The Minerva expressed 
self-sufficiency; the “White Madonna,” God’s suffi- 
ciency. One expressed justice, culture, the perfection 
of human gifts, regnant and victorious ; the other 
spoke of welcome, healing, mercy, and help for those 
who were in pitiable needs. The virgin evolved by 
the philosophers of the Greeks was a concept touching 
but few of humanity, and fitted to be crowned only in 
a world of perfections, such as has not yet existed. 
The “ White Madonna” depicted a real character who 
had a human heart and heavenly traits, and that easily 
found acceptance in human affections. 

The maiden and her counselor sat together for a 
long time ; she speaking of her social miseries, he of 
God’s remedies; she describing the thickness of the 
night about her; he telling her in beautiful parables 
that there was a refuge and an asylum, though the 
night obscured all for a time. As they conversed the 
rising moon flooded the “White Madonna” with 
silvering light, and the chaplain rapturously ex- 
claimed : 

“See, the moon gets its light from the sun, and gives 
it to the image. We do not see the sun, but we 
see its work and glory reflected ! So God hands down 
from heaven to His children, by His angels and minis- 
ters, the powers and blessings that they need. Mir- 
iamne, we have a Father who forgets none and is 
munificent to all ! ” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


THE WEDDING AT CANA. 

** I would I were an excellent divine 

That had the Bible at my fingers’ ends ; 

That men might hear out of this mouth of mine 
How God doth make His enemies His friends ; 

Rather than with a thundering and long prayer 
Be led into presumption, or despair.” 

— Breton. 

“Hear ye Him. Whatever He saith unto you, do it.” — Mary. 

HAPLAIN WOELFKIN heard of Mir- 
iamnc’s reply from her mother. He was 
both glad and sorry thereat ; sorry the 
heart he tenderly esteemed should have 
been so wounded, and glad that the wounding afforded 
him opportunity to show how gently and wisely he 
could comfort. 

“ Your trial came at a fortunate time, sister.” 

I can not see how such a rebuke can ever be timely, 
being unjust and cruel.” 

“True enough; but if fate must assail, it is well to 
have its hardships fall on us when we are supported by 
dawning hopes. There are hopes near for Miriamne.” 

“ Let not my brother’s warm heart give me false 
comfort. I’ve no sight of hope.” 

“ Say not so ; there is a surprise in store for you,” 
Now, pray, explain,” 



382 The Queen of the House of David. 

‘‘You will be permitted to meet your father at the 
chapel service to-night.” 

“Oh, but — !” and Miriamne bowed her head and 
waved her hand as if to repel some unpleasant specta- 
cle. 

“Be not perturbed, sister. Let me explain: You 
came hither to seek your demented parent, hoping 
that love would find a way to compass his healing. 
The purpose and effort were alike noble and wise. 
You lost heart because the results were slow to appear ; 
but the good seed was sown, and now for the fruit.” 

“ Has my father recovered ? ” 

“ He has improved, and to-night well sit quietly 
while we apply the balm of Gilead.” 

“ Now am I in a mystery.” 

“ Miriamne’s ministries have touched a responsive 
chord in Sir Charleroy’s heart and fitted him to attend 
our mind-cure services. Love is the surest remedy 
for a mind gone down under the ruins of the crushed 
heart. Sir Charleroy calls his daughter ‘ Naaman’s 
little maid,’ and but yesterday said : ‘ Ah, she’ll take 
me to healing Jordan yet ! ’ ” 

“ Blessed be God,” devoutly exclaimed the maiden, 
glancing heavenward. 

“ To which I say ‘ amen,’ assured that great things 
will come through our ‘ Birth of Peace' ” 

“And what is that, pray? ” 

“ We are trying to soothe the tumultuous minds of 
our asylum patients by displaying sweet peace in 
picture garbs. To-night by the aid of a musical and 
illustrative service we shall depict, in the chapel, the 
Birth of Jesus. But I’ll not explain further now. 
Wait until the hour of service, sister,” 


The Wedding at Cana, 383 

When the people were gathered, Miriamne, glowing 
with hope, yet silenced by anxiety, was in the midst 
of the assembly. The preliminary services moved 
slowly along with a studied absence of hurry. Miriamne 
could not give them her attention; she was disappointed 
because she did not see her father present, and the 
chaplain himself was not there. Presently the music 
of the occasion arrested her attention. She followed 
its movement and found it gaining control of her feel- 
ings. There was an organ in soft, quiet tones leading 
voices that murmured words of trust and rest. She 
followed the flowing tide of melody again and again, 
each time further, higher, more contentedly, until one 
strain, expressive of serene triumph, lifted her to a 
very third heaven of satisfaction. There it left her 
almost at a loss to say where the melody ceased and 
the remembering began. 

At that instant, the chaplain passed by her side, 
robed in white, hurriedly whispering so she alone 
could hear: “Your father is behind the screen of 
Templar banners, quietly listening. Be hopeful and 
pray. God is good ! ” The words to her soul were as 
rain whisperings to spring flowers in a torrid noon. 

Advancing to the raised platform, the young man 
told the story of Bethlehem, ending with a beautiful 
description of the angel song of “ Peace on earth, good 
will to menP The words of the speaker were quietly 
spoken, and his address mostly like that of one convers- 
ing with a few friends ; but the words were very impress- 
ive. When all had bowed to receive the benediction, 
Miriamne, lifting her eyes, beheld her father sitting, 
with the flag screen thrown aside, full in view, but 
clad as a knight and without manacle or guard. For 


3^4 The Queen of the Mouse of David, 

a moment he sat thus, then arose and calmly moved 
out of the chapel toward his lodge. She obeyed a sud- 
den impulse and rose to speed after him, but the restrain- 
ing hand of the Grand Master was laid on her arm : 

“ Wait ; not yet, daughter.” 

Renewed hope made it easy for her to comply, and 
she sat down again filled with gratitude toward God. 
A series of similar services followed, each bringing new 
causes for hopefulness to the maiden. 

‘‘ We are going to Cana to-day, sister,” remarked 
the young chaplain some weeks subsequent to the 
Birth of Peace ” service. 

To Cana? ” 

“ To Cana, and for a purpose.” 

“ I can not fathom it, brother.” 

Then the young man explained to his fair hearer the 
scripture event, and the method devised for presenting 
it at the chapel, as intended that day. 

The patients and their friends were assembled in the 
chapel again. Sir Charleroy among them, but silent 
and absorbed with his own thoughts. 

“ We are going to try a device to gain his attention,” 
whispered the chaplain to Miriamne. Just then the 
Grand Master, dressed in the full regalia of a knight, 
ascended the platform and uncovered to view a huge 
earthen vessel, remarking: “Friends, we want to 
exhibit this evening a vessel, on its way now to 
France, but left for a time in our custody by some of 
our comrade Crusaders, who brought it from Cana in 
Galilee.” 

“Knights,” “Crusaders,” “Cana!” murmured Sir 
Charleroy, as if in soliloquy. Miriamne observed her 
father’s eyes. They were no longer leaden ; they 


The Wedding at Cana, 385 

flowed with interest. “You all remember,” continued 
the Grand Master, “how Jesus turned the water into 
wine at Cana? Tradition informs us that this before 
us is one of the identical water-pots used that time by 
our Savior ; but I’ll leave our chaplain to tell the rest.'’ 
The youth took his position at the pulpit and began 
informally to talk, as if in conversation, but he had 
anxiously, carefully prepared for the occasion. 

He first pictured Cana, with its limestone houses, 
sitting on the side of the highlands, a few miles north- 
east of Nazareth. “This place,” he continued, “is the 
reminder of two instructive events. I have their his- 
tory here.” Thereupon, Cornelius turned to an illumi- 
nated volume and began reading, with passing com- 
ments. As he read. Sir Charleroy closely watched the 
reader; the puzzled look of the listener faded into sat- 
isfied attention. 

“ Jesus was proclaimed the Lamb of God, near Cana, by 
that vehement, self-starving Baptist John. But in habits 
and manner of living John and Jesus were utterly dissimi- 
lar. There was harmony in the great things, faith and char- 
ity in all things.” 

The mad knight nodded inquiringly. 

The student continued: 

“Jesus, the organizer of the new kingdom, at Cana, 
unfolded one part of His policy, for nigh here twain ques- 
tioned : ^ \V/ie>e dwrllcst thou C Jesus instantly invited 
them to His own abode. They dwelt with Him a day, 
and were won to be His loyal disciples, thus attesting 
the power of Christ in the home. And they got a home 
religion, for one of these, Andrew, at once sought to win 
his brother Peter to discipleship. On the eve of Cana’s 
wedding feast Jesus won Philip, saying, '‘Follow me^ and 
Philip hasted to win Nathaniel, crying, ‘Come and see.’ 
To these He spoke of a hereafter home with open doors and 
a holy family. Each of Jesus’s true disciples was impelled 


386 The Queen of the House of David, 

to haste and tell salvation’s story to his nearest kin. Chris- 
tianity is a feast beginning in the home circle and spread- 
ing to all the earth.” 

The mad knight, as he listened, cast a glance of in- 
quiry over his shoulder at those near him. 

“ Sir Charleroy applies the lesson to himself/' whis- 
pered the Grand Master to Mariamne. 

Cornelius went on: 

“ Cana was the home of Nathaniel. We see this poor 
man sitting in seclusion under a fig tree. Except his 
doubts, he was alone. To him Jesus went, and at the door 
of his own home the Master met him. Because Nathaniel 
believed, on little evidence, God gave him more, and prom- 
ised him that he should see heaven open and the angels 
ascending and descending, as in Jacob’s vision. So are 
those winged messengers passing back and forth forever, to 
minister to and comfort needy man. One may be lost to 
the world, to friends, to himself, but never lost to the Good 
Shepherd, who is like the one in the parable leaving the 
ninety and nine to follow the lamb that was straying.” 

Sir Charleroy’s head bowed, and Miriamne was glad, 
for she saw the tears falling thick and fast down his 
pallid cheeks. 

A sign from the attending physicians brought the 
services quietly to a close. They had seen the emo- 
tion of the knight, and desired that the feelings aroused 
be permitted to quietly ebb. 

A few days later, by their advice, the Grand Master 
summoned the chaplain of the Palestineans to hold an- 
other service like the last. “ Sir Charleroy was blessed 
that last day. He evinces interest and natural reason- 
ings. Since the former service he has repeated the 
story of Cana over and over, together with the sub 
stance of thy discourse thereon. Besides that, he 
never tires of inquiring about the ‘ruddy priest of the 
sweet words,’ ” said the physician. 


The Wedding at Cana, 387 

I obey, my Master, it’s God’s will. What shall be 
my theme?” 

“ Oh, Cana continued ; De Griffin is constantly in- 
quiring as to when the ruddy priest of the sweet words 
is to continue the tale of the Cana,” said the Grand 
Master. 

“ Praise the Day Spring that hath visited us ! ” 

“You echo the thought of all our souls, Cornelius.” 

And it was so that on the day following the chapel 
of the “ House of Rest ” was filled with much the same 
company that met there the last time. 

Miriamne arrived early and eagerly questioned Cor- 
nelius as he passed her on his way to his robing-room : 

“ Oh, brother, hast thou a message of grace and 
hope for me, to-day?” 

“ The entrance of thy word giveth lightf was his 
quiet reply; and he passed on, not daring to tarry near 
the woman that so strangely moved him. He felt 
very serious, and hence avoided that which might dis- 
tract his attention. 

But Miriamne felt assured, while Cornelius was all 
faith in the efficacy of the Divine word in working the 
cure of minds perturbed. 

Presently he stood behind his reading-desk and, 
waiting until the organ tone had died away, com- 
menced by reading these words : 

“And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of 
Galilee ; and the mother of Jesus was there : 

“And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to 
the marriage.” 

Sir Charleroy had entered the chapel, and was mov- 
ing toward a lonely seat ; his motions were languid ; 
his action listless, except when at intervals he gazed 


388 The Queen of the House of David. 

into the empty air and hissed some incoherent words 
at imaginary people. But the word “ Cana ” arrested 
his attention. He looked up, smiled, and then ex- 
claimed : “ Oh, the red-faced ! That’s it ; tell us more, 
more of Cana ! ” 

Cornelius complied. “We have here a story of two 
lives in the most precious tie on earth, marriage.” 

Then the chaplain read : 

“ We see Christ at a Jewish wedding, and the Hebrew 
marriage was ever an occasion of great joy. Not only so, 
but the weddings of that people were characterized by very 
instructive and impressive ceremonies^ Let me explain. 
The day before the wedding both bride and groom fasted, 
confessed their sins and made ceremonial atonement for the 
errors of their past lives. They were to be part of each 
other, and felt that each owed it to the other to be free 
from burden or taint of the past. Both bride and groom at 
the wedding wore wreaths of myrtle, the emblem of justice, 
constantly to typify that virtue as supreme in wedlock.” 

“ Oh, young priest, thou art an angel ! ” 

The voice startled all but Sir Charleroy. He had 
spoken, yet his face indicated only placidity and inter- 
est. Cornelius proceeded : 

“ The bride, veiled from head to foot to show that her 
beauty was to be seen only by him to whom she gave her- 
self, decked with a girdle, emblem of strength and subjec- 
tion, was led in triumph from the home of her father to the 
home of him who was to possess her. Before she took her 
departure, kindly hands anointed her with sweet perfumes 
and gave her priceless jewels ; while on her w^ay she was 
met by all her friends, singing songs and bearing torches to 
gladden her journey toward her new abode. Thus they that 
loved the bride did bestir themselves to bestow bounties and 
make the maiden most choice. There was no detraction, 
no defiling, no effort to belittle. Were wives aided like 
brides there would be fewer broken hearts among wedded 
women.” 


The Wedding at Cana, 


389 


Wondrous true, ruddy priest ! " It was the mad 
knight’s voice. Cornelius continued : 

“The feast of the wedding lasted seven days. To such 
a gathering J esus once went. Probably this was the marriage 
of a kinsman. Thus, immediately after His temptation and 
His baptism, with His mighty redemptional work all before 
Him, our Lord deemed it a leading duty to give proper at- 
tention to this wedding ceremonial, one of the lesser things 
that make up so much of life. With man supreme selfish- 
ness, or natural littleness, engenders apathy to all except 
some pre-occupying purpose, but He, in whom all fullness 
dwells, entered into and embraced around about all life. 
He was as glorious when meddling with human joys and 
making the waters of Cana blush to wine, as when grappling 
with the sorrows of sin and setting Himself up on Calvary 
the beacon and light of the ages.” 

Miriamne felt the illumination again that first came 
to her that Easter-day at Bozrah, while Sir Charleroy’s 
face glowed with intelligence and peace. This was a 
full, round gospel which Cornelius was proclaiming, and 
every soul present was fed. 

After pausing for an interlude of soothing music he 
again proceeded with his discoursing as one conversing : 

“ At Cana, Christ bound as a captive, natural law. 
How He did so we do not know, but we do know that 
while destroying no part of nature’s system he mys- 
teriously made it serve for human happiness in a way 
unusual and marvelous. It seems to me that the story 
of Cana is a fireside story. No matter how miserable 
a home may be, it may have faith that in welcoming 
the Divine guest it welcomes assured miraculous joy. 
Life’s waters may blush everywhere to heaven’s wine ! ” 

The mad knight murmured: “Oh, ruddy priest! if 
thou couldst only preach this in Bozrah.” 

The Grand Master, who was sitting by Miriamne^ 


390 The Queen of the House of David. 

pressed her hand and whispered : “ Memory is reviving 
— praise to the Day-Spring! ” 

Cornelius again read his parchment. 

“And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus 
saith unto him, They have no wine. 

“Jesus saith unto her. Woman, what have I to do 
with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.” 

“ So,” said the reader, “ these folks were likely poor, 
the supply meager, though no man ever yet had enough 
of the wine of joy at his wedding until it was blessed 
by the God of marriage.” 

Just then Sir Charleroy, standing up, solemnly said : 
“ Young man. I’d have thee tell these people why He 
said ‘Woman, what have I to do with thee? ’ He, the 
man, was master, that was it, eh ? ” 

“ Oh, motion to Cornelius not to debate,” whispered 
Miriamne to the Grand Master; but Cornelius was al- 
ready adroitly replying : 

“True, knight of Saint Mary, but this Master of 
ceremonies was Divine. Then He was not talking to 
his wife. He had not wed this woman, hence was not 
bound by the law of being her other self. Besides that 
we must not forget that they had often conversed in- 
timately before the wedding ; she with all the tender- 
ness of a woman’s heart, which in its love ever natur- 
ally outruns all plans, all reasonings, to bestow all it 
has at once upon the all-beloved. She hurried Christ 
in the way of giving. This to her credit, if her wis- 
dom is reproved.” 

The knight settled back in his seat, his face very 
pale but not anger-marked. 

Cornelius continued: “The term ‘woman’ is often 
used, as here, in all tenderness. Our rugged language 


391 


The Wedding at Cana. 

ill translates the original. When a people has not fine 
moods in its living, its language becomes like sack^ 
cloth, unfit to clothe the angeUike thoughts of those 
who live on more exalted planes. The gross degrade 
all their companions, whether such be beings or merely 
words.” 

The leader again read : 

His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever 
he saith unto you, do it.” 

“ This shows the good, motherly Mary supplementing 
the Master’s work. Doubtless, she had her partisans, some 
who would have sided with her had she chosen to rebuke 
her Son. But she desired harmony at the feast and in the 
home. This was the chief end, and for it she was willing 
to serve and wait.” 

“ Very true ! Our Lady was always right and good.” 
It was the voice of the mad knight. 

Cornelius continued : 

“ These were the finest words Mary ever spoke ; they 
were the key to her whole life ; indeed, the spirit of the 
ideal woman ever more standing nearer to Christ than any 
other being ; at a wedding, the very climax of fullest human 
love, the gateway to home, the counterpart of heaven, Mary 
points all to the Christ, exclaiming, ‘ Hear ye Him ! ’ ” 

Our Lady was always a wise, brave, loving, sub- 
missive woman,” exclaimed Sir Charleroy. 

‘‘ It is an old tradition,” replied Cornelius, “ that 
this was the wedding of John, the beloved and confi- 
dant of Jesus. It is. interesting to remember that that 
blessed disciple, in his Gospel, presents the one whom 
he loved as a mother but twice — once at this wedding, 
the other time at the crucifixion ; the places of highest 
joy, and deepest sorrow ; a way of saying from the altar 
\.o the crosS; is woman’s course ; a parable-like present 


392 The Queen of the House of David. 

ment of the doctrine that the wife and mother are to 
appear at these two points, so opposite, so common to 
all ; the lowest dip, the highest heaven.” 

The mad knight suddenly interrupted them. 

“ What did Joseph think of all this? ” 

Perhaps this odd query was fortunate, for it brought 
smiles to all. The knight laughed out until his eyes 
were flowing with tears. 

Cornelius, self-possessed, quietly replied : “ It is said 
that Joseph was dead long ere this wedding, and that 
Mary was exhaling the perfumes of her consecrated 
widowed life to gladdening in pious ministries the peo- 
ple about her. Widowhood has such purposes.” 

“Ah, she was the Rose,” cried the knight. “If 
Joseph were not dead, he might well stand back, be- 
hind such a wife ! ” 

The chaplain of the Palestineans closed with a well- 
worded climax, recalling the fact that this event made 
a lasting impression on the Son of God, as evinced by 
the wondrous tropes of the Apocalypse, where eternal 
goodness and eternal joy are pictured under the simili- 
tude of a wedding-feast. 

The mad knight cried out : “ Grand, grand ! Oh, 
ruddy priest, I worship thee!” 

The Grand Master signaled the conclusion. The 
worshipers and patients were slowly retiring, Sir 
Charleroy moving toward his lodge seemingly wrapped 
in contemplation of some engrossing problem. 

He passed near the picture of “ Rizpah Defending 
Pier Relatives,” which by some mischance had been 
left near the chapel door. Instantly the knight’s at- 
tention was fixed ; he became excited, then suddenly 
turning to an attendant, exclaimed : 


The Wedding at Cana, 393 

“ Here, tell me, where am I ? Is this London or 
Bozrah ? ” 

“London, good Teuton.” 

Again he gazed at the picture, and his transforma- 
tion was startling. His face was distorted, his body 
became rigid and swayed as that of the hooded snake 
making ready to strike a victim. Then bounding to 
the Grand Master’s side he snatched the latter’s sword 
from its hilt, quickly returned to the picture, and be- 
fore any could prevent him began to hack it to pieces. 

One tried to restrain him, but was overpowered, two, 
then three were flung aside. Presently he was pinioned 
but not silenced. 

“ Away ! Unhand me ! ” he shouted. “ In the name 
of the King of Jerusalem, the defenders of the Sepul- 
cher, unhand me! Do you not see? There! they’ve 
come to make riot at the feast of Cana ! Ruddy priest, 
come quickly. Help ! This fearful gang will all be 
loose in a moment ; they be the ghosts of the giants, 
and war everlastingly against the peace of homes ; 
against our Mary and her Son’s kingdom.” 

He was breathless for a moment, and all were anx- 
ious lest he be permanently unsettled. Some were 
praying for him, others holding him. Then he broke 
forth again as before. 

“ Unhand me, infidels ! God wills it ! Let me cut to 
pieces yon horrible thing fresh from hot hell ; painte4 
by the gory and beslimed hands of devils ! See ! it’s 
bewitched, and the woman and the hanging men and 
the vultures are all alive ! They’ll be at us ! One of 
those black birds has feasted on my heart for years, 
and yon woman has nightly beaten my bare brain with 
her club.'' 


394 The Queen of the House of David. 

They tried to calm him ; his daughter pressed to his 
side, and flinging her arms about the knight, beseech- 
ingb'- cried: “Father! father! it is I! Miriamne ! ” 

“Miriamne? Ha! ha!” cried the excited man. 
“ More mockery ! More witchery ! Miriamne is lost, 
eternally lost ! Yon group of demons tore her from 
me ! Oh, God, if thou lovest a soldier of the cross, 
hear me, and blast with burning, swift and quenchless 
lightnings, yon monsters, and with them all who sepa- 
rate hearts and wreck homes ! ” 

“ Father, so say we all ; let us pray together,” 
pleaded the girl. 

“ Father ! Who says ‘ father ’ to me ? ” 

“ It is I, your daughter, Miriamne ! ” 

Suddenly, Sir Charleroy became calm and curiously 
observed the maiden. “Art thou Sir Charleroy ’s 
daughter? I knew him once in Palestine. He died 
afterward in London and left me his body. But it’s 
not much use. It’s sick most of the time. I carry it 
about, though, hoping he’ll come for it. If thou dost 
want it thou canst have it.” 

The daughter humored the fancy, and quickly 
replied : “ I do want it. I love it. I’ll help you take 
care of it. Let me now hug it to my heart.” 

Then he permitted her to twine about him her arms, 
and when she kissed him the second time he returned 
the salutation, and tears ran down his hot cheeks. 

“ Blessed be the God of peace,” fervently ejaculated 
Cornelius. “ The day dawns ; after tears, light.” 

The knight continued after a time, addressing Miri- 
amne : 

“ Sir Charleroy was my friend ; and thou art his 
daughter? Thou wouldst not deceive me, I know, 


The Wedding at Cana, 395 

Tell me in a few words,” he said, meanwhile furtively 
glancing about, “ Who am I ? ” 

Miriamne again humored him, and pressing her lips 
nigh his ear, in a whisper replied : “ Sir Charleroy, 
Teutonic knight, my father.” 

The old man held her off a little way, gazed at her 
a moment, doubtfully, then said : “ Thou art large for 
a baby! Miriamne is a little thing.” Then he con- 
tinued : But thy eyes, they are Miriamne’s ; and so 
honest ! I believe them ! Then thou art Miriamne 
and I Sir Charleroy?” 

‘‘Truly.” And again she kissed her father. 

“ But thou dost not want me — a wreck, a pauper! ” 

“ I do, and the boys do ; all Bozrah wants you, needs 
you.” 

“Not thy mother! Oh, no ; I murdered her long 
ago!” 

“ Not so, dear father.” 

“ I did, indeed. See,” and he pointed to the paint- 
ing, “ I’ve killed her again, to-day.” 

“ That’s but a miserable painting, and I hate it as 
much as you do ; but it’s harmless, henceforth.” 

“ Are all the devils in it dead ; the vultures that ate 
up my heart ? ” 

“ Yes, yes ; who cares for them ? ” 

“ Then I shall get better.” 

The mad knight suffered himself to be led away 
quietly. There was great joy among the Palestineans 
that night. And so Miriamne carried the spirit of 
Mary, that presided at Cana’s feast, into the misery of 
that English asylum. She had given her life to min- 
istering for others, had begun in her own home circle, 
her life motto : “ Hear ye Him ” — “ Whatsoever He saith 


39^ The Queen of the House of David, 

unto you^ do itT Now she was rewarded, and began to 
hope that there would be the renewal of wedding 
chimes at Bozrah, that the wine of its joy would be 
renewed and sweetened. She questioned the chaplain 
for advice. “ Tell the Master there is no wine in the 
old stone house, and * whatsoever He saith^ do it^ ” was 
the young man’s answer. 


CHAPTER XXVIl. 

" THE STAR OF THE SEA." 

r 

** Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 

I lay me down in peace to sleep, 

Secure, I rest upon the wave. 

For Thou, oh Lord, hast power to save. 

I know Thou wilt not slight my call. 

For Thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall, 

And calm and peaceful be my sleep. 

Rocked in the cradle of the deep. 

And such the faith that still were mine 
Tho’ stormy winds swept o’er the brine, 

Or tho’ the tempest’s fiery breath 
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death ; 

In ocean’s caves still safe with Thee, 

Those gems of immortality, 

And calm and peaceful be my sleep 
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.” 

IKE the morning dawn on a calm sea, after 
a night of fierce storm, so came now great 
peace to Miriamne. The heaviest sorrow 
of her life was lifting. Her father was re- 
covering ; his mind becoming rational ; and chief of 
Miriamne’s joys, was the fact that his convalescence 
was accompanied by the appearance of a deep trusting 
love for herself. He seemed to lean on his daughter 
for help ; cling to her for hope and aim, by every way, 
not only to express his sense of dependence on but his 
deep and abiding gratitude toward the patient, chief 




398 The Queen of the House of David, 

minister, in the mission of his recovery. He seemed 
for a long time to be haunted by a fear of relapse into 
some great misery that he but dimly remembered 
and could not define, beyond a shudder. He dreaded 
to be alone, and often clung to his daughter with fur- 
tive glances of fear, even as a terrified child clings to 
its mother. One day, months after he had begun to 
be rational, he addressed Miriamne: “ We must soon 
seek another abiding place, daughter. Our Grand 
Master has discharged with overflowing payment, 
every debt of hospitality.” 

“True, father, and Tm glad ; the thought for weeks 
in my mind, is now in yours. But where shall we 
go?” 

“ I think, to France, and immediately.” 

“ France ? ” 

“Yes, there I’ll seek out some of the De Griffins. 
They may be able to mend my shattered fortunes, and 
if I find none of my kin, I shall not be lacking in any 
thing, for there are many of our Teutonic knights. 
While they prosper, no want shall harass me or mine.” 

“ Father, I do not want to go to France.” 

“ Why, this is strange?” 

“ It seems far away, very far, to me.” 

“Art thou dreaming, my Syrian Oriole?” 

“ No, awake ! And very earnest.” 

“ Why, we could walk thither, were it not for the wa- 
ter.” 

“ But I can not go that way ! ” 

“ Well, we can not stay here, so where ? ” 

“ Eastward ; Bozrah ! ” 

“ Wouldst thou ask a spirit, by mercy permitted es- 
cape from Tophet to return?” 


The Star of the Seaf 399 

‘^Yes, even that, if the spirit had a mission and a 
safe conduct." 

“Thou art nobler, braver than I. I can’t trust the 
land of giants and vultures." 

“ The giants and vultures we must meet are in human 
forms, and such are everywhere." 

“ There are over many for the population, in Syria 
and beyond it." 

“ But there have been many changes since you left 
that country, especially, in our city," persisted the 
maiden. 

“ Nothing changes in Palestine or Bozrah, daughter^ 
except wives, and they only one way ; from bad to 
worse." 

The young chaplain seconded Miriamne’s efforts. 

Sir Charleroy was spasmodically the stronger, but 
Miriamne by patience and persistence prevailed. In 
time, she won her cause, and the three took sail for 
the Holy Land, the knight protesting that he would 
go as far as Acre and no further. The journey was 
slow but not monotonous, for the English trader on 
which they journeyed stopped at various ports. Cor- 
nelius on his part was enjoying a serene delight that 
had no shadow except when he remembered that voy- 
aging with Miriamne was to have an end ; Miriamne on 
her part had three-fold pleasure ; delight in her com- 
panionship with the young missionary, delight in the 
continued improvement of her father’s health, and 
greater delight still in the glowing hope of the success 
of her mission of peace to her home-circle. As for Sir 
Charleroy it suited him well to be sailing. Ede was 
ever exhilarated by change ; each day brought it. He 
was in theory a fatalist, and the staunch ship pushing 


400 The Queen of the House of David. 

onward day and night to its destination, carrying all 
along, was an expression of the inexorable. Then the 
conditions about him rested him, for he was freed from 
any need of bracing of his will to choose or execute 
any thing. He went forward because the ship went. 
That was all and enough. Only once during the voy- 
age did he assert himself or express a desire to change 
his course. That was when passing Cyprus. 

“Here,” he cried, “let me disembark! ” 

Persuasively, Miriamne protested. 

“But I must! I’ve a mission. I want to curse the 
memory of the recreant Lusignan, the coward ‘ King of 
Jerusalem;’ he that clandestinely stole away from 
Acre on the eve of those last days ! ” 

“ But, father, Cyprus is called the ‘horned island.’ 
I do not like the name ! ” 

“I’ve heard it better named, ‘the blessed isle.' 
There the hospitable knights had a refuge for pilgrims, 
and it still abides.” 

Just then some of the sailors cried, “Olympus!” 
They had caught sight of that ancient mountain, the 
fabled home of the gods. 

Miriamne adroitly used the cry to divert her father’s 
mind, saying : 

“ Let those admire Olympus who will ; as for me, I 
prefer holy, fragrant Lebanon.” 

She pointed eastward, and they saw the dim outlines 
of Palestine’s famous range. The knight’s attention 
was fixed on Lebanon, and they sailed past Cyprus 
quietly without further objection on his part. 

Miriamne and Cornelius, as the night began to settle 
down, stood together by the ship’s side, feasting on 
glimpses of the distant shore. There were signs of a 


The Star of the SeaT 


401 


coming storm, perceived intuitively by those accus- 
tomed to the sea, by the young watchers best discerned 
in the anxious looks of the seamen. 

The captain says the sky and sea are preparing for 
a duel. You noticed how the blue changed to dark 
brown in the water this afternoon ? He says that, and 
the muddy appearance of the sky, betoken a tempest." 

How like polished silver the wings of those gulls 
glisten as they career ! " was the maiden’s ecstatic reply. 

The wings are as they always are. They glisten 
now because they flash against a murky background." 

“ An omen, Cornelius, for good ! I’ll call the sea- 
birds hope’s carrier-pigeons with messages for us." 

I would we had their wondrous power of outriding 
all storms. It is said they can sleep on the waves, 
even during a tempest." 

I’ve the heart of a sea-gull, to-night." 

And not a dread or pang within ? " 

‘‘No, no! Oh, come, any power, to hurry us to 
Acre! I’d give way to the merriment of the becalmed 
sailors, who whistle for the wind, if I only knew the 
notes of their call." 

“ But the old sea-captain is very grave. See how the 
men at his command are lashing up almost every stitch 
of our ship’s dress." 

“ Oh, well. I’ll be grave, too, to please thee ; and yet 
I pray that Old Boreas, and all the Boreadal, come in 
racing hurricanes, if need be, that we may be sent gal- 
lantly into longed-for Acre ! " 

“A storm at sea is grand in a picture or in imagina- 
tion; sometimes, though rarely, in experience. To be 
enjoyed it must be terrible ; there's the rub ; it may 
come with overmastering fury." 


402 The Queen of the House of David, 

“Bird of ill omen ! Why cry as in requiems? As 
for me, while you are fearing going down, I’ll be think- 
ing of going forward ! ” 

“ And be disappointed, certainly, on your part, as I 
hope I may be mistaken on mine. We may not go 
down ; we shall certainly not go forward ! ” 

“ Now, how like a wayward man ! Since you can 
not have your way, cross me by predicting my frus- 
tration ! ” 

“ Oh, do not lay the blame on me ! there are broader 
shoulders to bear it. Lay the blame on the Taurus 
and Lebanon ranges ! ” 

“Well, this is an odd saying, surely ! " 

“ Wait awhile, and you will find it very true, as well. 
We are to meet to-night, most likely, the Levanter or 
off-shore gale, Paul’s Euroclydon, charging down from 
its mountain castles. Taurus and Lebanon together 
form a cave of the winds ! ” 

“And you seem glad that they are coming to battle 
us back?” spake the maiden, rebukingly. 

“Yes, if they prolong our companionship. I can not 
rejoice in a speed that hastens our parting.” 

The last sentence died on the chaplain’s paling lips 
with a sigh. 

The maiden turned her eyes full on the speaker, 
then slowly, meditatively answered : 

“ I shall be sorry, too, at our parting ! ” 

“‘Sorry!’ Ah! that’s no word for me, this time; 
agonized is better!” was the young missioner’s quick 
rejoinder. 

The maiden was pained, but she mastered her feel- 
ings and pleaded : 

“ The parting must come some time ; do not let 


The Star of the Sea, 


403 


such repinings make it harder for both. It is wiser, 
when confrpnting what one does not desire, but can not 
help, to court the balm of forgetfulness. So do I ever, 
especially now.” 

^‘And like all attempted silencings of the heart, 
by cold philosophy, mocked at last by failure ! ” 

My philosophy can not mock me, since it accords 
with the stern facts which confront us. I’ll be as 
frank now as a sister, Cornelius. Our diverging mis- 
sions part us. You go to Jerusalem to preach the 
cross ; I, to a narrower field, at Bozrah, to attempt the 
rekindling of love on one lone altar of wedlock. God 
orders it thus, and I submit unquestioningly ; for it is 
not for one who can scarcely touch the Jiem of His 
garment to challenge His wisdom by a murmur.” 

“But time, Miriamne, may leave you free, your 
work being completed in the Giant City?” 

“ Even so. There is a gulf between us ; we may 
love across it but not pass it, in body, in this life.” 

“ And I can not see the gulf ? ” 

“ I am in faith, after all, an Israelite ; enlightened to 
be sure, but not likely to renounce the ancient beliefs. 
You are a Christian ; nor would I wish you otherwise. 
Now, amid the miseries I’ve witnessed in my own 
home, I can not but be admonished against any at- 
tempt at fusing, by the fire of adolescent, transitory 
loving, two lives guided by faiths so constantly in antag- 
onisms.” 

“The faith of Jesus and Mary, truly lived, never 
failed to fuse hearts sincerely loving. You may call 
yourself what you like ; in substance of faith we are in 
accord.” 

“ The chaplain reasons well ; better than I can^ and 


404 The Queen of the House of David. 

yet he does not convince me ! I can only plead that 
he do not persist, and so make the parting harder. It 
must be ; though my heart break, I must suffer the 
immolation. I’ve asked this question in the awful 
sincerity of a soul as it were at the bar of judgment : 
‘ What wilt Thou have me to doH I know the answer. 
I must seek to bring father and mother together.” 

And then? ” 

Seek to know if the Messiah has indeed come.” 

“ And then ? ” 

*^If I find He has, some way tell His people Israel, 
as only a Jewess can, of the Light Everlasting.” 

“ And then ? ” 

Why, that’s sufficient to measure the lives of gen- 
erations; but if I survive beyond that work, I have 
vaguely passing through my mind the coming of a 
millennial day when all mankind will be akin ; all right- 
eous, all just, and the tears of womankind assuaged.” 

“ I pray for that, but how can we hasten joy by 
breaking our own hearts? ” 

“ I do not know what lies beyond ; how that day of 
glory is to come, but this I know, the spirit of Chivalry 
was from God. It had, and has a deep, impressive mean- 
ing. In contact with it at the west, I felt all the time 
as if it were blind, but a Samson still, feeling for the 
pillars of some mighty wrong. I wonder if I may not 
be the giant’s true guide. Or, better still, may I not 
be, under God, the giantess to do the very work. Per- 
haps the world awaits a woman Samson ! ” 

“ What Miriamne says is to me all mysticism ! 
Explain.” 

“ I do not know how, beyond this: I’m God’s bride 
by consecration, and He will keep me for His work.” 


The Star of the SeaT 405 

Can’t I share it ? ” almost piteously, the chaplain 
asked. 

‘‘Truly, yes, wherever you may be, with me or not.” 

“ Oh, Miriamne, your passionate enthusiasm en- 
trances me. You are an inspiration to me. I fear I 
shall languish aside from you.” 

“ I shall love you more, Cornelius, as you are more 
grandly, heroically self-sacrificing.” 

“Any thing to win Miriamne’s constant love ! ” 

“ I shall love you, Cornelius, in a deep, holy way, 
only and forever. I’d be ashamed to be thus frank, 
but that I have a love that is as pure as the heaven of 
• its birth. Be true to your God, to your mission ; a 
little while and then at the City of Light, life’s brief 
dream over, the first, after God, I’ll ask for will be the 
faithful man whom my heart knows,” 

“ Ah, what can I do ? I’m all zeal ; willing to go, but 
the glow of your cheeks, the flash of your eyes, even 
in the midst of such noble converse, drag me away 
from my resolves. That that stimulates me, unmans 
me, or reminds me I am a man and a lover.” 

“ You ought to teach me, not I you; but you re- 
member you told me of the belief of some in ‘penetra- 
tive virginity.’ That is the purity of Mary passing 
somehow into others. Oh, all I am that’s good, be in 
you, and more, even all that she was whom you so 
revere; I mean the mother of the Christ.” 

“In my soul I reverently exclaim ‘amen,’ but then 
again, how strange the question will not down, ‘ must 
we part ? ’ ” And so saying he flung his arm about the 
woman, passionately embracing her. He thought for 
a moment he had overcome her, but the kiss on her 
lips not resisted, was the end ; for slowly untwining his 


4o6 The Queen of the House of David. 

arms and holding his hands at arm’s length, she ques- 
tioned : “ Will you promise me one thing? ” 

Surely, yes, name it.” 

That you will think of me as a friend, sister, hence- 
forth, and let me go my way without further misery ? ” 

The man struggled with himself for a time ; then 
gazed into her eyes with a most piteously appealing 
gaze. 

She was firm. 

“Yes — I promise, but say affianced, to be wed in 
heaven ? ” 

“ God bless you,” was her instant response. Their 
lips met and the debate was ended. 

And so for the time they separated, persuading 
themselves that the whole matter between them had 
been finally sealed. They had all faith in their pledges 
mutually given, each to live apart from the other. As 
yet they had no just conception of the power of a 
rebel heart constantly uprising. Of course, they both 
foresaw a measure of wretchedness in the future as a 
consequence of their decision, but distant pain fore- 
seen by the young, is ever dimmed by hope, and very 
different from present pain. These twain comforted 
themselves, at first, by the thought that they were mar- 
tyrs, and it is always agreeable to feel ourself a martyr, 
especially when expecting a martyr’s reward ; at least 
it is so until the reality of the martyrdom comes. 

The sky grew darker, night shut down about the 
ship, the winds increased, and that sense of awful lone- 
liness, felt on the eve of an impending night-storm at 
sea, came to all hearts but those of the sailors. The 
latter were too busy to think of aught but their duties. 
Then their captain had his reckonings, and assured 


The Star of the Seaf 


407 


them by his bearing that he felt confident that he 
could outride this storm as he had often before simi- 
lar ones. Miriamne, yielding not more to the captain’s 
command, than to the entreaties of Woelfkin, went 
below to her cabin. She soon courted sleep to help 
her forget the war of the tempest, praying a prayer 
most fitting, meanwhile. The prayer was a medita- 
tion, like unto this : “ He that cares for all will care 

for helpless me, and come what may, keep me until 
that last great day.” The storm strengthened, and she 
began to be anxious for her father, and her friend. She 
had said to herself the latter title should define Cor- 
nelius. But her heart forgot its fear a moment in a 
mysterious, merry peal of laughter; such laughter is 
very real, but it is never heard by human ears. We 
know it only in those exalted moments when we try 
fine introspections ; when there seems to be two of us; 
the one observing and entering into the other. Miri- 
amne heard that laughter when she meditated, “Cor- 
nelius is just a friend.” Presently she became more 
anxious for those aloft. Then a troop of imperious 
inner questions came to her: “ Might I not stand by 
him, if the danger increases ? Would it be wrong to 
show him that I am brave and loving ? ” 

“ Will he think me cowardly and stony-hearted ? ” 
Resolution was being assailed, and weakened. The 
questionings increased in number and imperiousness: 
“ What if to-nighf we are all to perish ? ” Then she 
let imagination take the rein. She thought of a scene 
that might be if she and her beloved were as be- 
trothed, soon to be wed, lovers. In the scene she fan. 
cied herself, her lover and her father all together in a 
last embrace, going down into the yawning waves. 


4oB The Queen of the House of David, 

“ Would my lover try to save me ? ” For the moment 
there were two of her again, and it was the one that 
awhile ago laughed so merrily, that now seemed to be 
saying : “ Would my lover try to save me ? ” The one 
self heard the question, and by silence, without sign of 
rebuke, seemed to give the other self plenary indul- 
gence. Then came a free play of her imagination. 
She saw herself lying in coral palaces, beneath the 
moaning waves of the Mediterranean, still clasping 
her lover and her parent. Then she thought of how 
her friends would receive the news of her demise. 
Perhaps some poet would embalm the event in death- 
less poems, and thousands read of the three that per- 
ished side by side. Her mind ran back to London. 
She imagined a memorial service at the chapel of the 
Palestineans and the Grand Master there saying : “Mi- 
riamne de Griffin was lost at sea ; in the path of glo- 
rious duty, loyally pursued to the end.’’ 

Then she thought of Bozrah and the old stone house, 
with her mother and her brothers, its sole occupants ; 
the mother in mourning garbs, her spirit subdued, and 
she often tenderly saying to the fatherless, sisterless 
boys, “ Miriamne was a good girl, a faithful daughter, 
a noble woman.” 

But after all, these excursions were unsatisfactory to 
the young woman. And naturally so. When she 
thought of lying a corpse, with weed-winding sheets, 
for years, in the caves of the sea, she was repelled. 
Thoughts of her memorials, possibly to transpire at 
London and Bozrah, were not very comforting. She 
was too young, too free from morbidness, too deeply 
enamored, to court, assiduously, posthumous honors. 

Then came thought of a wreck and rescue, and it 


The Star of the SeaT 




Was very welcome. It grew out of the possibility of 
the youth she loved and she alone, of all on board, 
being saved. She thought of drifting about for days 
on a raft ! Would she recall her resolutions and his, or 
would he say to her: “ Miriamne, I saved you from the 
deep; now you are mine entirely and forever!" 
Would she believe his claim paramount ? Would 
duty’s requirements be satisfied ? Then she was as 
two again. One voice said ‘ yes,’ and the other did not 
concur, neither did it gainsay. She could not pro- 
nounce a verdict and there were tears flowing. 

The storm grew stronger, but the laboring ship rose 
and fell on the billows at intervals, and she was lulled 
to sleep. Her last thoughts, as she passed into dream- 
land, were that it would have been a useless pain, both 
endured, if now they were to be lost; the pain of de- 
termining, as they had, to live apart. As she so 
thought she wished almost that they had not resolved 
as they had. Conscience and desire were in their 
ceaseless warfare. Then sleeping brought a dream of 
joy, the blessing that comes often to the heart that is 
clean. The dream was colored by events preceding. 

Cornelius had reminded her the day before, as they 
were sailing along the coast of Cyprus, that, at 
Paphos, on that island, there was once a temple to 
Venus, the fabled goddess of love. That divinity, sur- 
rounded by multitudes paying her homage, came be- 
fore the dreamer’s mind in all those ravishing splen- 
dors of person that are so attractive to human desires. 
Around the goddess, and very close to her, were hosts 
of young men and maidens, their actions as boisterous 
and ecstatic as those intoxicated. Outside of the 
throngs of youths were others older ; and outside of 


410 The QiieeH of the House of David, 

these were others still ; those far away from the god- 
dess, seemingly bowed with years. The company of 
youths was constantly increased by new arrivals who 
crowded back those there before them. 

But there was a depletion as well as augmenting of 
the vast, surging congregation ; for anon, as if mad, 
some nearest the deity rushed away, both of the men 
and the maidens, nor did those fleeing stop until they 
found violent deaths by leaping from cliffs or into the 
sea. 

Then the ancients, crowded continually back by the 
new arrivals, one after another, with expressions of 
disappointment and disgust on their features, seemed 
to melt away into a surrounding forest of trees that 
were very black and very like shadows. The dreamer 
in her dream betook herself to prayer that the God of 
mercy might change what she saw. 

Then she beheld the Paphian goddess in all the splen- 
dor of her form, a perfect triumph of nature, just as 
depicted by bard and painter, looking out contemptu- 
ously, pitilessly, toward her former votaries, now aged 
and pushed aside. There came then a voice as if from 
above : “ God is lovei' 

Immediately on the face of the divinity there was an 
expression as of terror, and she began sinking. Be- 
fore the mind of the dreamer, the beautiful creature, and 
her retinue of nude, bold-faced attendants, with all that 
appertained to them and their queen went down, in- 
gulfed in a foaming, roaring whirlpool. As they 
went down lightnings from above shot after them. 
And the dreamer looked aloft to see from whence the 
voice and the lightning came. As she gazed upward 
she saw a man of noble form, reverently bowing, as a 


The Star of the Seaf 41 1 

son might bow in the presence of a mother revered and 
loved, before a woman of noble mien and beautiful be- 
yond all compare. 

But this one’s beauty had no similitude to that of 
the departed deity. As the maiden gazed she dis- 
cerned that the man was the one her heart called 
lover, the woman the one she had enshrined as the 
ideal of her soul, Mary. The twain stood above her, 
on a plain, apparently of clouds very bright, rising in 
graceful curve from the earth and stretching away in 
measureless vistas, filled with flowered parks, silvery 
rivers and stately mountains. Along the rivers, amid 
the flowery plains and on the verdant mountains, there 
were numerous buildings; but these latter were invit- 
ing ; not palatial, nor stately. They were homes sur- 
rounded by family groups. And the dreamer dis- 
cerned true love triumphant and fruitful. She lingered 
in this presence, anon longing for a presentment of her 
self amid the scenes of pleasure, until all was suddenly 
dissolved by a mighty lurch of the ship that awak- 
ened her. She started from her couch and all im- 
mediately before the dream came back to her mind. 

“ We’re in a storm on the Mediterranean, and the cap- 
tain is anxious ! ” Her nerves were now unstrung ; a 
woman’s timorousness was upon her. She could hear 
confused noises aloft, but no voices. For a moment 
she questioned: “What if all but myself have been 
swept away?” Then she thought of herself as drift- 
ing about in a ship, sailless, helmless, alone ! The 
thought was suffocating. The noises aloft continued, 
and she gave strained attention to catch the sound of 
a voice. There was nothing to be heard but the creak- 
ing of timbers, the dashing of waves, the shrieking of 


4i2 The Queen of the House of David. 

winds and vague thumpings, as if parts of the vessel 
were beating each other to pieces. 

“ ril not lie still in this coffin ! " she exclaimed, and 
with a bound she made her way to the deck. As she 
arrived there she thought she saw dark forms, some 
crouching as if for shelter, and others as if engaged in 
a great struggle. Were these demons^ or the crew in 
a struggle for life ? She could not say. Then there 
came a cry from the direction of the forward part of 
the ship ; she thought it was her father’s voice, but it 
was very hoarse and scarcely recognizable. 

She listened again to the cry : “ Ho, ho ; ye Olympian 
demons ! tear up the sea, charge now! Ha, ha ; have 
at us ! ” The cry thrilled her. Again the wild voice 
rose above the storm : 

“ Bury her, my darling, if ye dare ! What matter I 
her white soul has eternal wings ! ” 

She was certain it was her father. She longed to 
rush to his side, but she doubted whether she could 
find him in the darkness ; then, too, even in the terrors 
of the moment, her maiden modesty asserted itself. 
She remembered that she was but partly clad. 

Again came that voice, wilder than before: “Ye bil- 
lows, dare ye smite a knight in the face ? I’ll meet your 
challenge, and single-handed, in your midst, fight ! ” 
Miriamne’s heart was almost paralyzed by the 
thought, “ The boisterousness has overcome my father. 
He’s contemplating leaping into the sea I ” 

Just then a vivid flash of lightning made every thing 
visible. It seemed to cut under the clouds, which, 
rain-charged, were running near the billow crests, and 
at the same time enswathed the ship from the mast 
tips to the partially exposed keel, in flame. 


The Star of the SeaT 


I'he maiden saw by that flash her father standing on 
the head-rail, one hand clinging to a stay rope, the 
other with clinched fist, as if menacing the boiling 
waters that leaped away from the plunging prow. His 
face was livid, his hair wind-tossed, his eyes glaring. 
With a scream she bounded toward him ; her scream 
and appearance terrifying the sailors. It was so un- 
expected and they had forgotten the presence of a 
woman on board. They only saw a white form, with 
disheveled hair and with a motion light and swift as a 
creature on wings, passing from companion-way for- 
ward. 

But the fright was but momentary. Cornelius, who 
had been vainly endeavoring to calm the knight, knew 
the form, and loud enough to be heard by all cried : 

Miriamne de Griflin ! ” 

He was by her side in an instant. 

The young woman uttered pleadingly one sentence, 
but it thrilled all who heard it ; 

“ My father ! ” 

Cornelius exultingly answered : 

“ Saved ! See, the captain holds him and has sum- 
moned the watch!” Then he could do no less, for- 
getting as he did in the present surprise, all old re- 
solves, so he drew the trembling form to his heart as 
closely as he could. She drew back a little, but he 
whispered,' “ Miriamne.” What else he might have 
said was lost, for she fluttered a little, then rested, but 
on the bosom of her companion. 

She was a woman in peril, in fright, storm-drenched, 
and in love. What otherwise or less could she have 
done than nestle in the shelter that gave love for love 
and promised her all else ? 


4f 4 Queen of the House of David. 

“ Are you not alarmed, Cornelius ? " 

^‘No." 

“ How strange ! You have changed places with me. 
In the evening you trembled when I left you, and I 
thought I was very brave. Now I tremble ; do you not ?" 

I ebwered a while ago from the cross you presented 
me j it seemed to bring a lingering death.” 

Just then the ship’s prow plunged under a mountain- 
ous billow. Miriamne clung to her support and fear- 
fully questioned : 

“ Shall we be overwhelmed ? ” 

** No ; I’ve a token.” 

“ From the captain ? ” 

*‘Not from the one who guides this ship alone.” 

A flash of lightning revealed the lover’s face to Miri- 
amne. She saw his eyes turned devoutly upward, and 
she understood his meaning. They had withdrawn to 
a shelter by the vessel’s side meanwhile. Presently 
the young missioner spoke again ; 

“Our Heavenly Father keeps vigil, I think, some- 
times with especial care over this highway between the 
outer world and the desolate habitations of His chosen 
people.” 

“ Hark, the sailors are singing! How strange it is 
to sing in such perils,” spoke the maiden. 

“ They’re as happy now as the wave-walking petrels. 
The Levant has done its worst; they know this by 
the coming of the rain, hence they sing their ‘Light- 
ning Song.’ ” 

“ Lightning song?” queried the maiden. 

“ Listen ! How they explode their vocalized breaths 
in hissings, whizzings, followed by the prolonged crash 
made by stamping feet and clapping hands at the end 


The Star of the SeaT 


415 


of every stanza. That chorus is meant to imitate 
those heralds of the thunder, the flashing lightnings.” 

“ But it seems presumptuous to me. The lightning 
is so dreadful ! ” 

“ Not that which comes as ^a funeral torch to Euroc- 
lydon,’ as the sailors say. Some of them call it ‘ the 
winking and blinking of St. Elmo going to sleep.’ ” 

“ Oh, Cornelius, the storm is breaking ! I see a star ; 
yes, two ! ” rapturously cried the maiden. 

Truly, yes; ‘Castor and Pollux,’ the ‘Twins,’ the 
‘ Sailor’s Delight ! ’ They say these stars are storm 
rulers and friends of the mariner. Now hear how they 
shout their song! They see the stars ! ” 

Above the subsiding wind and waves, rose the words 
of the singers : 

“ Now to our harbor safe going ; 

Riding the billows, pushed by the gale : 

The torch of the Twins bright glowing— 

Tipping our mast and gilding each sail.” 

“And do these stars assure, Cornelius ? ” 

“ I saw a star no cloud can ever hide, through the 
darkest part of the storm.” 

“ A star ? ” 

“ Yes, ‘ Mary, Star of Sea.’ ” 

“ I do not comprehend you.” 

“God’s love! He that guided the maiden orphan 
of Bethlehem through the besetments of her life, amid 
the tempests of Jewry and Rome, purely, safely, glori- 
ously, to the end ; while many of noble birth and hav- 
ing every earthly good went down to ruin, walks ever 
on the wave where faith voyages.” 

“ And you thought of the Holj^ Mother in the 
^torm? ” 


41 6 The Queen of the House of David, 

^‘Yes, this Adriatic is full of angels, that come in 
thoughts, or before the eyes! You remember Paul, 
tempest tossed a day and a night on this sea, was found 
by the Divine Messenger that night when the darkness 
was thickest ? ” 

“ And this ‘ Star of the Sea? ’ 

“ It tells me mother-love was carried by a dying 
Savior into the heart of the Triune, Eternal God, and 
we are His children, and He became Father and Mother 
to us. You have seen the hen gather her chickens, as 
human mother shelters with her arm or apron her child 
in pain or peril ? ” 

“ How touching ! Think you He felt for us like ten- 
derness in the height of the storm?” 

“ He sought in His plenteous wisdom mother love 
to sustain Himself, during the pain and perils of His 
incarnation, and will ever surely grant a love and care 
to His own beloved ones in suffering or danger as ten- 
der as that He sought and needed for Himself.” 

‘‘Surely this is a grateful, natural reasoning; but do 
you believe Mary presides over the sailor especially?” 

“ It is enough for me to know that the P'ather 
through Mary exemplified His motherliness.” 

“I’ll never more call yon bright luminaries Castor 
and Pollux, but rather Jesus and Mary, the guides and 
the defenders ! ” And for a long time they gazed at the 
double stars, the storm slowly abating. Once the youth, 
drawing the maiden closely to himself, questioned : 

“ Can not we call the stars in conjunction, ‘ Cornelius 
and Miriamne ’ ? ” 

They had been watching, in sweet converse, there, a 
long time ; there were faint traces of dawn in the east,, 
^nd Miriamne had just been thinking, “ Palestine re^ 


The Star of the SeaT 


417 


ceives us with illumination ; " then she bethought her- 
self that she and the man with her were going hither 
to proclaim the Gospel of eternal light. The question 
of her lover recalled the converse of the day before. 
That seemed fact, unchanged ; all occurring since, 
dream. She arose, pointed eastward, and firmly said: 
“ There lies our work, our all. May a glorious day 
enhalo all God’s chosen country ere long. Cornelius, 
yesterday we promised solemnly that we dare not turn 
from now ; especially after our wonderful deliverance ! ” 
She glided away to her cabin, leaving the man alone 
to contemplate the poor comfort of being praised as a 
martyr, on a cross of self-sacrifice ; the pains of which, 
if not as awful as those of Calvary, were destined to 
be more prolonged. His face was as if sprinkled with 
white ashes ; it was so pale, so blank. After the tempest 
they spoke very little with each other. Miriamne 
waved away any attempt at re-opening the subject, with 
a motion of the finger to the lips, signaling silence, and 
a glance all tenderness, but full of pitiful pleadings to 
be spared. The young man but once or twice essayed 
the discussion, fearing on the one hand to trust himself 
to speak, and on the other hand feeling that any effort 
to change his fate would be hopeless. But he and she 
were full of inner conflicts. Then their pathways 
seemed stony, brier-tangled. They had both elected, 
for Guide and Ideal, Jesus and Mary ; they were both 
going toward the cross in a noble consecration of their 
lives. But they denied themselves that that sustained 
Jesus, home love, such as he found at Bethany ; conjur 
gal love, such as sustained Mary, the wife and the 
mother, as well as the disciple. They had as their loft- 
iest ambition the purpose of making the world happier 


41 8 The Queen of the House of David. 

• 

and better, and began by making misery for themselves. 
They had read that a star led the wise men of the 
East to Christ in a cradle, the light of the Gospel 
rising first in a little home circle. They looked at the 
double stars above them after the storm that night 
almost until dawn, and then turned away to go, each 
into the dark like a lone wandering star. Each was in 
part the victim of a fabricated conscience, and of a mis- 
conception of duty. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


THE QUEEN IN THE VALLEY OF SORROWS. 


“ They led him away to crucify him.” — Mark. 

“ There followed him a great company of . . . women, who 

also bewailed him.” — Luke. 

♦ * * 


Gabriel : “ Hail, highly favored among women blessed ! 
Mary : This is my favored lot ! 

My exaltation to affliction high ! 

—Milton. 



OR many days Sir Charleroy and Miriamne 
tarried at Acre, the latter seeking to ban- 
ish repining on account of him whom she 
had sent away at the behest of conscience, 
by ministries for her parent. With alacrity she joined 
the tours of her knightly father, visiting the scenes 
where he once battled, listening, from time to time, with 
unaffected delight, to his recitals. The tides of fanati- 
cal conquests had wrought few changes on the face of 
the city, and the realism of those days of siege, of the 
stern compacts made in the last hours of the Crusaders, 
the solemn religious services before the last battle, the 
death struggle and the disordered retreat, was com- 
plete. The excitement of revived memories seemed 
to lift up the knight from the syncope of ill health. 
This encouraged the maiden to solicit the reviews and 
recitals of her father. The night before their depart- 
ure from Acre, as determined, the knight and his 
daughter stood together contemplating the sacred pile 




420 The Queen of the House of David. 

which stood in the moonlight and shadows, mostly in 
shadows. The soldier of fortune, having told its story 
over and over, was now silent, dreaming of the past. 

“ Selamet ! ” 

They both started, for the voice was like one from 
the tomb, none but themselves being apparent. 

“ I’m afraid here ; let’s be going, father,” whispered 
Miriamne, essaying to withdraw. 

Thereupon there glided out of the shadows a stately 
form who, drawing near to the father and daughter, 
spoke : 

“ Fear not, lady! Knight, they can not be foes who 
court kindred memories and hope of like colors at the 
same shrine I ” 

“Thou speakest with Christian allusions the * peace’ 
word of the Turk.” 

“I wear the Turkish ^selamet! as I do this Turkish 
harness, a loathed necessity, but without ; the peace I 
pray and feel is the mystic inner peace.” 

“ As a Christian ? ” 

“Yea; nor do I fear confession, since I am speaking 
to those who abhor the Crescent.” 

“A pious Jew would as soon adhere to Astarte with 
her orgies as to bow to the mooned-crown she wore.” 

“Jews? No, not Jews! Such would not sooner 
run from the moon-mark than they would from the 
shadows which fall down about you from yon grand 
and awful sign.” 

The speaker pointed to the crossed spire above, as 
he spoke. 

“No more avoidance; we are brethren. Tm Sir 
Charleroy de Griffin, Teutonic knight.” 

“ And not unknown. The story of thy valor, even 


The Queen in the Valley of Sorrows. 42 1 

here, lives in the bosoms of true companions. I’m a 
Knight Hospitaler of Rhodes, yet fameless.” 

The two men came closely together ; there were a 
few secret tests. The Hospitaler said: 

“ In hoc signo vinces ” 

Sir Charleroy crossed his feet, stretched out his 
arms and murmured something heard only by his com- 
rade. It made the other’s eyes lighten with pleasure. 

To Miriamne it was a dumb show; but the tokens 
given and received were useful to pilgrims in those 
perilous times. 

^‘Whither, Sir Charleroy?” 

^‘To-morrow, toward Joppa.” 

“So, ho ! By interpretation. The Watch-tower of Joy. 
From thence one may see Jerusalem! And then?” 

“And then ? God knows where ! A useless life, like 
mine, is ever aimless.” 

“No, no, father!” interrupted the daughter; “not 
useless. No life that God prolongs is useless.” 

“ True ; the girl is right. Teuton. Aspiration will 
cure thee, since it’s the mother of immortality. I go 
to Joppa also.” 

“ They say. Hospitaler, its sea-side is full wild ; its 
reefs like barking Scylla and Charybdis ? I hope it 
may be so ; I’d like a terrible uproar.” 

“The sea is the emblem of change; from calm to 
weary moan, to howling terrors and back again.” 

“ But the people ? They say Joppa’s outside is fine, 
naturally, though, within, the life of its people is mean, 
colorless ; a charnel-house whose activity is that of 
grave worms ! ” And Sir Charleroy shuddered with 
disgust at his own figure. 

“ I think the legend of Andromeda, said to have 


422 The Queen of the House of David, 

been chained to Joppa’s sea-crags for a season, to be 
persecuted by a serpent, then freed, prophetic. Joppa 
may have a future.” 

“ How?” 

“ Oh, the chained maiden was boasted by her fond 
mother as more beautiful than Neptune’s Nereids, 
hence the persecution. Crescent faiths have been the 
persecutors of Joppa and all the other beautiful 
Andromedas of this land.” 

“And the chains are riveted?” 

“ No, not certainly. There was, in the myth, a Per- 
seus of winged feet, having a helmet that made in- 
visible and a sickle from Minerva, goddess of wisdom ; 
he slew the serpent, then wed the victim.” 

“Now the key, further.” 

“When wrongs overwhelm all, women suffer most; 
but time brings their deliverance.” 

“The myths are as full of women as the women 
full of myths ! ” exclaimed Sir Charleroy. 

“ But Andromeda, the woman, was blameless ! ” 

“Yet it’s strange that in all men’s fightings, as in 
their religions, constantly the woman appears,” replies 
Sir Charleroy. 

“ I’d have thee think, knight, of the legend ; it tells 
how men, in those dark times, tied their faith to the 
sure conviction that right would triumph, wrong be 
slain, and the martyrs at last go up among the stars. 
See how they placed their Andromeda in the constella- 
tion now above us. Perseus was a Christian, or rather 
a Christian was a Perseus.” 

“ Now, thou art merry ! ” 

“No; I mean St. Peter; he was a Perseus. Hearken 
to the word ; 


The Queen in the Valley of Sorrows. 423 

“ ‘ Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named 
Tabitha: this woman was full of good works and 
alms-deeds. 

‘And it came to pass that she died. 

“‘The disciples sent unto Peter two men, desiring 
him that he would not delay to come to them. 

“ ‘ When he was come, they brought him into the 
upper chamber : and all the widows stood by him 
weeping, and showing the coats and garments which 
she made, while she was with them. 

“ ‘ But Peter put them all forth, and kneeled down, 
and prayed ; and turning him to the body, said, Tab- 
itha, arise. And she opened her eyes : and when she 
saw Peter, she sat up. 

“ ‘ And he gave her his hand, and lifted her up ; and 
when he had called the saints and widows, he presented 
her alive. 

“ ‘And it was known throughout all Joppa; and many 
believed in the Lord.’ ” 

“ Why, Hospitaler, thou hast a memory like an ele- 
phant or an emperor and a tongue like a sacrist ! ” 

“ Well, the time for swords being past I have taken 
to books ; their leaves are wings. The world will be 
conquered yet by the words of the Swordless King.” 

“And thou wouldst liken Tabitha to Andromeda? 

“Wasn’t she a real beauty, as her name is inter- 
preted? Beautiful old soul! She robed the poor! 
Peter bringing her to the truth of the new life smote 
the dragon at Joppa, as a very Perseus.” 

“ A woman ! a woman, again leading the army of 
salvation ! ” 

“ After that Peter slept on the house top of Simon 
the Tanner, and God gave him the vision of Jew and 


424 The Queen of the House of David. 

Gentile, bond and free, rich and poor; all, as one fam- 
ily coming into the benign rays of the Sun whose wings 
are full of healing.” # 

And will that day come. Sir Hospitaler? Fm feel- 
ing almost a frenzy of desire for it ! ” 

“ Surely as the morning to Acre ; but we must hie 
homeward ; good-night ; Fll see you at the quay 
to-morrow.” 

From Acre, Miriamne and her father, next day, set 
sail. The companions on the journey from Acre 
by Joppa arrived at Jerusalem, there to separate 
soon, for Miriamne, with every ingenious device, 
urged her father forward. Bozrah was constantly 
uppermost in her mind. 

“We part. Sir Charleroy, to-morrow?” said the 
Hospitaler. 

“ If thou dost elect to stay in sad Jerusalem, 

“Yes; I’d go mad here from doing nothing but 
wrestling with my thoughts. In fact, I guess Fd go 
mad anywhere, if long there. I think, sometimes, 
that my mind’s in a whirlpool, moving not like 
others ; yet, round and round in some consistency, 
carrying its befooling creeds, hopes, dreams, visions, 
phantasmagoria in a pretty fair march. Fm sure, more 
than sure, that if I once stopped moving, my brain 
would rest like a house after a land-slide, tilted over, 
while all the things in the whirlpool would drift about 
in hopeless confusion.” 

“Thou dost talk like a physician, gone mad with 
philosophy ! ” 

“ No doubt of it ; that’s all because I’ve been idling 
here a month ; a week longer and God knows who 
could set me going again, rightly.” 


The Queen in the Valley of Sorrotus. 425 

Then the knight laughed merrily ; very merrily, in 
fact, for a man who had trained himself to morbidness. 
The Hospitaler replied : 

I see nothing for me beyond the Holy City and its 
historic surrounds. I’m training myself to proclaim 
God’s kingdom and must begin at that pre-eminent, 
world over-looking point, Jerusalem.” 

But there are no schools to fit one there?” 

“The most informing and man-expanding on earth ; 
the deathless examples of the worthies ; best studied 
where they lived their mightful living. I go now to 
Golgotha.” 

“ Golgotha ? ‘ The Place of the Skull ? ’ ” 

“ Even so, sometimes called the Valley of Jehosa- 
phat.” 

Sir Charleroy rubbed his head as one well puzzled, 
and was silent. 

“ Oh, knight, thou hast forgotten the goings forward 
of Ezekiel’s mind, prophetically. It was in Kidron, 
the Golgotha Valley, that he had the vision of the dry 
bones. Let me read : 

“ ‘ Behold, there were very many bones in the open 
valley ; and, lo, they were very dry. 

“ ‘ And He said unto me. Son of man, can these bones 
live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. 

“ Again He said unto me. Prophesy ; 

“‘Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones ; Behold, 
I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live : 

“‘As I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a 
shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his 
bone. 

“ ‘ The sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and 
the skin covered them, 


426 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ ‘ Then said he unto me, say to the wind, Thus saith 
the Lord God ; come from the four winds, O breath, 
and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 

“ ‘ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the 
breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up 
upon their feet, an exceeding great army.’ ” 

“ And now, soldier, turned exegete, tell me what 
thou dost make of the strange phantasm?” 

That God will work in this world a marvelous 
transformation ; those living-dead, all around us and 
beyond, to the ends of the earth, shall stand in new 
life. The scene is laid to be in this Kidron valley, to 
bring all minds to the ‘ Light of the World,’ who 
passed in painful triumph along it, even unto Calvary.” 
“ But this may not be so, yet it so seems ? ” 

Hearken again to the prophet’s happy ending: 

“ ^ Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with 
them ; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them : 
and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set 
my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. 

“ ‘ My tabernacle also shall be with them : yea, I will 
be their God, and they shall be my people.’ 

All this,” continued the Hospitaler, “ is what is to 
come, is coming. The dawn of this day began when 
Jesus passed over Kidron ! ” 

“ And yet, Rhodes, I’m doubtful. Do not the cor- 
respondences remote, mislead thee?” 

“ If a crusade leader sent a summons like this 
wouldst thou respond, trusting? ‘ Blow ye the trumpet 
in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain : 
let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day 
of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand ? ’” 

‘^The Hospitaler knows I would.” 


The Queen in the Valley of Sorrows, 427 

Well ; God by His Prophet-Herald, Joel, so alarms 
the nations. And more, we have a broader summons,” 
and the preacher soldier read again : 

‘ Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: 
for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of de- 
cision. 

“ ‘ Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the 
valley of Jehosaphat: for there will I sit to judge all 
the heathen round about. 

“ ‘ Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. 

“ ‘ The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the 
stars shall withdraw their shining. 

“ ‘ The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His 
voice from Jerusalem ; and the heavens and the earth 
shall shake : but the Lord will be the hope of His peo- 
ple, and the strength of the children of Israel. 

“ ‘ So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God 
dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. 

“ ' Beat your plowshares into swords, and your 
pruninghooks into spears : let the weak say, I am 
strong.’ ” 

Then the Hospitaler closed his eyes, turned his face 
upward as in prayer, and began speaking like unto one 
in a rapture or trance : 

When souls would measure themselves for judg- 
ment, they must stand by the scenes wrought out by 
Him that died for men; just hereabouts, when the 
last judgment comes, the multitudes of earth, tried by 
the measure of the God-man, will be brought face to 
face with God’s standard of moral grandeur, sublimely 
once displayed here. Before its splendor the stars, 
the finest of men, shall wax dim ; human philosophy, 
the sun of the world, go out^ and human religion, ever 


428 The Queen of the House of David, 

the child of human desire, shall fade as the setting, 
waning moon, that emblem of the concupiscent. Then 
Charity, that never fails, shall come to her throne, the 
last implement of war be beaten into' services of love, 
while the weak, no more dominated by giant brutality, 
shall rise to the pre-eminence of moral strength. Adam 
and Eve, the fallen pair, passed through the valley of 
sorrow and sin, downward ; Christ and Madonna, the 
new ideals, passed through the valley of sorrow and 
salvation, upward.” 

“ Oh, Rhodes, the whirl of my brain is as if touched 
by the swellings of an anthem. Til come right yet, 
if thou dost enravish me so ! ” cried Sir Charleroy. 

And Miriamne’s face shone as if the sun were on it, 
but it was not. She was looking away, in soul, to the 
future. The Hospitaler continued : 

“ Truly, all heads, as well as hearts, are righted here, 
where the touch of the Cross makes the dry bones 
live. Here get I my schooling ; this place of the 
Cross, where the depths of sin, the heights of love, are 
manifest ; from which radiates all holiest tenets, to 
which and from which flow the streams of Scriptural 
truth. If only we could get all men to stand sincerely 
on this lofty hill of vision, overlooking all times to 
come, all histories past, all mysteries would be ex- 
plained, all prophecies become clear, and there never 
would be need on earth again for wars of faith or the 
burning of heretics. Pilate spake welcome words to 
the ages when he cried : ‘ Miles, expedi Crucem ’ — ‘ Sol- 
diers, speed the Cross.’ Its speed is light’s speed.” 

As they conversed, the three had slowly journeyed 
along the Via Dolorosa — the road to the Cross. 

‘‘Here/’ said the Hospitaler*, “it is reported that 


The Queen, in the Valley of Sorrows. 429 

Jesus yearningly looking back to the weeping women 
that followed him Cross-ward, cried : ‘ Daughters of 
Jerusalem., weep not for me^ but weep for yourselves and 
children! ” 

*‘The woman again in religion!” exclaimed Sir 
Charleroy. 

“ Immanuel spoke to the world, then. When truth 
goes to crucifixion, women and children — the weaker — 
may well weep. It’s the Giant’s hour. So children 
and women ever have been the chief followers of 
Jesus. No wonder that children brought palms of 
peace to Him and shouted His praises, while women 
annointed Him with tears. They knew, by an holy in- 
tuition, that somehow He was the King of Love, the 
defender of weakness.” 

** I begin to think. Sir Knight Hospitaler, that the 
sun of this country has wrapped its gold about thy 
brain.” 

“ Oh, father, don’t prevent ; these words of his are 
balm to my soul,” quoth Miriamne. 

“ Speak on, for the girl’s sake, knight. Speak on ; 
I’ll be silent.” 

The Hospitaler continued : 

“Daughter, thou dost follow the story as those holy 
women followed Jesus, afar off ; but with tenderness. 
As they found later unutterable nearness, so shalt 
thou ; God willing.” 

“ The woman in religion ! It’s so. I, a man ; this 
Miriamne, a woman, a girl, my daughter. I’m like a 
pupil to her, yet I professed this cross-faith more than 
a score of years before she was born. I’d need a mil- 
lennium to overtake her, in glory, if we both died now. 
I’m like poor old David, who fled frorn his rebellious 


430 The Queen of the House of David. 

son, Absalom, over the hills that skirt Kidron. I’m 
dethroned.” 

“ Remember, rather, that He who glorified Kidron 
was ‘ obedient unto death.’ Mother and son, together 
all loving, all loyal in that dread hour, here attested 
that in David’s kingdom, at the last, at its best, there 
will be no trampling on the family ties, Sir Charleroy.” 

“ Wonderful! I never thought of this before, after 
this manner. But still, the woman leads the world 
in religion ! ” 

‘‘ The woman! Yes, but only when she takes her 
place, as did Mary, as a follower of Jesus to Calvary.” 

But how, now, about Astarte, Diana, Baaltis ? ” 

“ They had their day ; rude, gross phantoms ; con- 
ceived in the hot souls of low and lecherous men ; but I 
told thee, here we might overlook the world. In this 
valley Athaliah, daughter of cruel Jezebel, Queen of 
Ahab, and, like her mother, an Astarte-socialist, wor- 
shiped the lewd ideal, Baaltis. Death, in shocking 
form, took off that heathen queen of Israel. God’s 
revenge, this was. 

“And now, I remember that the queen mother of Asa, 
here, in Kidron, set up the worship of Ashera with its 
Phallic mysteries ; but Asa, the youth, pure of mind 
and led of God, not only tore down, root and branch 
the groves and woven booths of licentiousness, but de- 
throned the woman who had set them up. Just here, 
in finest contrasts, I remember the Virgin Mary the 
pure mother, the ideal woman, who, in this valley of 
decision, rose for all time the exemplification of truest 
womanhood — a wife, a mother. Mary has broken for- 
ever the idols of Baaltis. While Mary’s memory lasts, 
part of the enduring, sacred history, toward which all 


The Queen in the Valley of Sorrows, 43 i 

Christian eyes turn, Astarte can never rise under any 
name or form for long toleration. She is forever brok- 
en, and her creed of lust fated to reprobation. 

“ Wherever this gospel story, eternal and eternally 
new, is told, there will come to the minds of the hearers a 
vision of those associated in the last dread hours of the 
Divine Martyr, in a fellowship of sympathy and sor- 
row. Among these will stand pre-eminent the women. 
Simon, the Cyrenian, compelled by the soldiers, aided 
the trembling sorrow-burdened Christ to bear the 
cross. And it is easy to believe that the wife of that 
Simon, who appears later, for a moment, in the praiseful 
salutations of Paul, as the parent of Christian sons, 
she reverently called by the great apostle mother, was 
among the women that were most sorrowful and nearest 
the dying Saviour. Then there were Mary, the mother of 
James, Salome, Mary Magdalene, and possibly Claudia 
the wife of Pilate — that brave woman who advocated 
Christ’s cause before the proud, implacable Sanhedrim, 
the howling mob and Imperial Rome’s representatives. 
What fitting mourners in that touching, yet august 
funeral march ! 

“'Women are fully capable by nature, through their 
finest, tenderest chords, ever responsive in woe, to ex- 
press the whole of grief, however deep ! The sex 
which loves most, loves longest, mourns most easily as 
well as most sincerely, and has made sorrow sacred by 
the lavish bestowals of it, whene’er its founts were 
touched. 

“There is an holy, perfumed anointing in their tears. 
This crucifixion-time was woman’s hour supremely. 
Mary with magnificent self-possession, heart-broken, 
yet strong in faith ; weeping in eye and soul, but in- 


432 The Queen of the Mouse of Davids 

truding ao wild bowlings amid those who wept for cus- 
tom’s sake; tearful, yet retiring in her grief, here 
passes before our minds at once the most fascinating, 
winsome, yet pity-begetting woman known to man.” 

“Father,” cried Miriamne, restraining but little her 
own tears : “ Are you listening? ” 

“ Yes, yes ; oh, yes. The glory of Eden’s noon has 
fallen on the tongue and brain of Rhodes, and yet I 
cannot gainsay him ; nor would I try to dispel his wise 
and honored sayings. I can only wonder and wonder 
how it is that woman rises at the very front when any 
grand advance is made.” 

“ Good Rhodes, go on,” spoke Miriamne. 

“I’m easily persuaded, for there is something of a 
savory sweetness to this grief — welcome mother of true 
penitence, that comes over souls, who, in imagination, 
follow the steps to the cross. I’ve heard that Mary 
followed her son from the Judgment Hall to Calvary. 
He moved at slow pace, and well He might ; worn by 
months of toil for needy humanity; by watchings, 
teachings and the like; until now ready to drop down 
under the thorn-crown, the scourging and the cross. 
But the blessed Virgin, still a woman, still a mother, 
faltered by the way. Sometimes she hid her eyes from 
the scourging, sometimes she was pushed aside by 
those who knew her not, or those who knowing hated 
her because of her goodness. Tradition tells us she 
fainted several times overcome by the terrors of that 
sad journey through the valley. She had small 
strength to witness the climax of brutality when 
cruel hands drove the awful nails into that One she 
loved ! The history of that dread hour has often 
wrung tears from stout hearts ; and he who under- 



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433 


The Queen in the Valley of Sorrows. 

stands in any degree a mother’s hearts easily believes 
that she was absent when the mob raised the victim 
on His cross. But, mother-like, nothing could keep 
her from the final parting, which death brought to 
her and her son. 

“ Sorrow sharpens the language of love to a deep ex- 
pressiveness ; when the end was approaching, Mary and 
John stood side by side and near to the One, who, to 
them, was dearer than all. I have heard, and I believe 
that a sign from the Christ had hurried John away, just 
before His death, to bring mother to the heart that was 
yearning not more to give than to receive, the comforts 
that both needed, the assurance of undying affection. 
The man on the cross, stripped of all earthly except 
His flesh, even robbed of the tunic that Mary had 
made, and for which the men of war gambled, as war 
has often gambled for the patrimony of the King of 
Men, had little or nothing of earth to give, other than 
His rights in the hearts of mother and John. 

These were His farewell keepsakes to each. It needs 
no strained imagination to fathom His heart, for He 
opened it all in His dying cry, ‘ My God, my God, why 
hast Thou forsaken me ?’ This was not as the cry of a 
victor, but that of a broken heart ; not as a strong man, 
but typical humanity, alone, facing death as a child. 
The language He used then was not that usually His, 
it was the language of His childhood. In every 
syllable of that cry, one may read, I fear that God, 
even God, has forsaken me ; but mother, my own loved 
mother ! mother, mother, oh, my dying, human heart, 
leans as a babe on thy bosom ! ’ ” 

“ Here, here!” cried Sir Charlero}^ “Quick! Take 
this cross of a Teutonic Knight of St. Mary; bury it 


434 Queen of the Mouse of David. 

when Tm gone by her grave in Gethsemane ! I have 
praised myself as her champion, and son, and devotee. 
Heavens! I’m abashed by thy splendid revelation I 
I never have even dreamed of her glorious worth I ” 

“ Father, my father, be calm, be calm — calm for my 
sake ; you fright me when you so give way. Remem- 
ber, we’re at the place where a wrong past ends at the 
right beginning.” 

“ Thou art my good angel, Miriamne ; but, oh, it’s 
twice sad I I’ve been a madman half my life and a 
player in a farce the other half ! ” 

“ Be calm, Sir Knight, and look into the wonders of 
this place. Christ’s coming to earth to pardon its 
errings, right its wrongs, and hang unfading victory 
crowns on all futures. Listen : There was night when 
that King died, and the dead arose and went about the 
city, attesting the eternal fact that He was Ruler of all 
worlds. And it was the Feast of the New Moon 
at Jerusalem ; the Feast of Venus at Rome ; of Khem 
in Egypt ; but the crescent was hidden.” 

“ I see, I see, Rhodes ; Mary and Mary’s son were to 
come forth ; all others eclipsed ! ” 

“ It is attested by history that there was black dark- 
ness about the Sun Temple at Heliopolis as Christ was 
bidding His mother and earth Death’s good-night. 
The Egyptian city of Osiris, by miracle, witnessed of 
the great event at Calvary. Some there were prompted 
to say: ‘ Either the world is coming to an end, or the 
god of nature suffers.’ ” 

‘^And Mary, wise and erudite, Rhodes? Tell us 
more of her.” 

“ ‘ It is finished ! ’ cried her son, and she passed 
from the grief of those who agonize amid somber, 


The Queen in the Valley of Sorrows. 43 i 

monster pangs impending, into that quiet, subdued, 
ripening sadness that comes over those who have 
learned to say : ‘ Thy will be done I At Cana’s feast 
her Beloved told her: ^ Mine hour has not yet cornel 
Now, she knew the meaning of the mystic words, and 
saw His hour, with all its mighty imports, at last 
marked in full ; all the prophecies gathered as into a 
full-orbed sun ; the cross rose like a dial, mountains 
high, the shadows on it telling eternity’s time ! Mary, 
the singer of the ^Magnificat,' her imagination fired, 
her vision inspired, as she stood by that interpreting, 
ghastly symbol, could see the course of the sacred past 
emerging into meaning. Eve leading; the wealth of 
her bloom no longer sacrificed to primeval, Astarte- 
like intoxications ; the wings of the real tree of life 
above her ; the serpent crushed beneath her heel. 
Then, following, Noah, the man of the ark, symbol of 
sheltering covenants between God and man, covenants 
ever circled by bows of hope, ever surmounted by 
dove-like peace. After these Abraham, with his typi- 
cal lamb, followed by a countless multitude of priests, 
laying down at the cross, as they passed, their temple- 
pattern, the symbols of its service realized and ellipsed ! 
After these, Moses, the law-giver, with face serene at 
law’s fulfillment, in company with flaming prophets 
innumerable, all rejoicing in visions realized. Behind 
all followed Captivity and Hades, Christ’s grandest 
trophies, forever in chains! Teutonic Knight of St. 
Mary, thy queen saw all these, and as they passed 
there rose to her view the White Kingdom of David. 
Now, stand here where she stood; surrender mind and 
heart to the Spirit and Word, then thou shalt behold 
the radiant procession, the coming glory ! ” 


43^ Queen of the House of David, 

The Hospitaler ceased. Then softly, meanwhile 
waving his hand as if entreating, Sir Charleroy spoke : 

Rhodes, wait a little ; don’t say any nlore now. 
I want to watch that procession. It seems to me I 
§ee it; Oh, \^onderful, all wonderful ! ” 

He shall be called Wonderful.” 

There was a long, long pause, broken geritly by 
Miriamne, who, after a while, said : 

We’d better return to the city ; the day is very hot, 
and I’m—” She could say no more. 

Silently Sir Charleroy complied ; silently all three 
journeyed to their abodes. The Hospitaler was con- 
tent with his effort to proclaim the truths of Calvary, 
and Miriamne was glad to leave her father to the full 
benefit of his sacred, all-engrossing thoughts. Mir- 
iamne, in heart, was enraptured by her thoughts of 
the mother of Jesus. 


CHAPTER XXijC. 

TWO DEAD HEARTS UNITING TWO LIVING ONES. 

“ Let us alone regret, . . . 

. . . Sorrow humanizes our race. 

Tears are the showers that fertilize the world; 

And memory of things precious keepeth warm 
The heart that once did hold them. 

'They are poor that have lost nothing ; they are far more poor 
Who, losing, have forgotten ; they most poor 
Of all who lose and wish they might forget.” 

— Jean Ingelow. 

NDER Miriamne’s adroit and patient guid- 
ance Sir Charleroy and his attendants 
made goodly progress until they reached 
ancient Jabbock, bordering Giant Bashan ; 
but at that point the knight made a stubborn stand, 
persisting that he would proceed no further Bozrah- 
ward. 

“ I smell Mohammedanism coming to me from the 
East, and, having had enough of the Saracens in my 

day, I’ll tarry away from their haunts 

I must go, beloved, to the tomb of my dear 
defender, Ichabod. I must go to Gerash to do the 
pious offices of a mourner.” 

The maiden brought forward every reason her 
ingenuity could invent opposed to the proposed deflec- 
tion in course. She enlisted the Druses guides, whom 
she had employed to accompany them hitherto, to aid 




438 


The Queen of the House of David, 


her in raising objections, and they magnified the 
obstacles in the way to Gerash with commendable 
loyalty to their employer, the maiden, if not with strict 
regard to truth. They all encamped, and the debate 
was the sole occupation for hours. 

“ Now, Miriamne, hitherto my good spirit, thou 
wouldst lure me to perdition! Fve been in the Lejah. 
Tm certain that black lava-sea is hell’s mouth, and 
Bozrah’s its porch ! ” 

“ So be it ; but if we go carrying the heavenly con- 
sciousness of doing our Father’s will, we may carry 
heaven to those gates.” 

“ It’s not my duty to go thither. I passed through 
that purgatory once. Its horrors blasted my life! To 
return thither would be presumption.” 

“ But you have forgotten the sunrise coming to you* 
Each day, for nionths, as you have journeyed east- 
ward, you have gained in health of body and 
mind.” 

“ Dost thou mean that God blesses those who 
plunge headlong to destruction, as the possessed swine 
that ran violently into the sea?” 

“ Can not my father let faith silence the disquietings 
of his wild fancies? The memory of a past pain, 
though a persistent, is often a false teacher.” 

“ Oh, I do remember. Some memories seem to 
scorch the very substance of my brain ! I pray when 
such come that God give me eternal forgetfulness. I’d 
rather be an idiot than have the power of coherent 
thinking filled with such reminiscences!” 

Ah, if we all, always, had the wisdom, while gazing 
into our dark, deep pools, to gaze until we saw at their 
bottoms the image of the sky above ! ” 


Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two Living Ones. 439 

“ Well said, daughter ! Bozrah is a dark pool! I 
saw there only an image of the sky, and that very far 
away ! ” 

The day of the foregoing they were wandering along 
the flowery banks and over the forest-covered hills 
that undulated away from Jabbock’s ravine. As they 
moved along the maiden plucked a hyacinth blossom 
and affectionately fastened it on her father’s bosom ; 
just where he was wont to wear, when in England, his 
knight’s cross. 

Rizpah once placed a lotus there ; it made me 
drunk ; a votary of pleasure, mad ; but Miriamne, her 
daughter, places there the flower of serene, deathless 
affection ! Sweet, thou art my good angeh the flower 
says to Gerash ! ” 

“ Why, father! I do not understand ! ” 

Apollo unwittingly caused the death of a beauti- 
ful youth, the friend of his heart, whose name was Hya- 
cinthus. So says tradition, and it’s so charming, I 
more than half believe it ! Apollo, in loyal love, made 
a flower grow from the grave of his friend. This is it ! 
See ; here’s the color of the dead youth’s blood. This 
blossom is the flower of deathless friendship and I love 
it.” 

“A touching story. I’ll remember it; but it seems 
to me the flower says, ‘ Bozrah,’ my father.” 

Take this leaf, girl ; here.” 

And what of this ? ” 

There, on that leaf, behold those signs, * Ai ’ ‘ Ai V' 

I think some markings are there like what you say, 
though never ’till now did I so trace them.” 

“That’s the Greek cry of woe. The perfumes of 
these flowers, in every field of Gerash, remind me of 


440 The Queen of the House of David. 

my duty. I must go to the tomb of the man that died 
in my defense.” 

“ A pious sentiment ; but duty to the living can not 
be pushed aside by such a call. You have other and 
living friends? ” 

“Yes, thou art my friend, lover, angel ; but I’ll keep 
thee^with me, my lamb.” 

“ Rizpah and your sons ! ” 

“ Rizpah my friend ? that would be amusing, if 
it were not such a grim sarcasm. Oh, what a miser- 
able race she led me ! ” 

“ Misery, like joy, in wedded life, is won or lost by 
the deed of two ; not one. I shall not acquit my 
mother ; but were not there two to blame ? ” 

“Two? no; only one. I could not be peaceful with 
a panther.” 

“ Be not too severe, and think a little ; did not you, 
after all, do much to make your wedded wife what she 
was at her worst ? ” 

“ What, I ? Thou dost not think that ? ” 

“Yes; I know the story of your espousal ; your 
flight from Gerash, and then your after conflicts. You 
knew before you determined against all opposing, in 
the face of reasons most grave, and without any thought 
of your adaptation to each other, to wed, that your 
tempers, tastes, and trainings were in almost every 
thing apart.” 

“Well, we loved each other sincerely ; our marriage 
vows were honestly taken.” 

“ Marriage ; that settled it forever ! Did you as 
honestly keep as you took the vows, for better or 
worse ? ” 

“ Now that were impossible. Did you ever see youp 


Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two Living Ones. 441 

mother in rage, her muscles rising in a sort of serpen- 
tine wavings from her feet upward? Ugh! I hear 
her sibilant, hissing words of scorn, now. They’ll haunt 
me forever. She was a lotus in love, and a boa in 
wrath.” 

“ I may have seen her so, but out on the love that 
lets such visions displace memories of the best things ; 
a daughter, nurtured by her, can not ; a husband sworn 
on hymen’s altar, dare not forget.” 

I tried to set her right, Miriamne.” 

Not always with kindness unfailing. I’ve seen the 
scourge-marks on her heart. I’ve heard her moan as 
a wounded dove ; no, more piteously, as a deserted wife 
and mother. You tried to set her right by forcing her 
to your faith, that, too, when the girl-wife was weak 
and exhausted by early maternity. You have been 
wont ever to pity profoundly the holy mother who re- 
coiled fainting from the spectacle of her son scourged 
to crucifixion. That pity is a fine feeling ; but since 
Mary’s day is passed, it is finer to evince a manly ten- 
derness for living women moving toward their Calvary, 
How you waste your emotions on the dead ! Mary, 
Hyacinthus, Ichabod, have all, Rizpah nothing.” 

- See here, daughter ; let me look down into thy eyes. 
I’m of a mind to think the sun has gotten into thy 
brain. It gets into every body’s in this country.” Sp 
saying, he turned her face toward his own. It was a 
bungling effort on his part *to parry her thrusts with 
ridicule, the last weapon pf the defeated. 

She was a little indignant, but yet too earnest to be 
diverted, and so followed up her advantage. 

“You were the stronger, every way, and fenced well 
against your other self. The woman erred^ sometimes 


442 The Queen of the House of David. 

grievously, perhaps, and you had your sweet retalia- 
tions. How sweet you can tell. Each blow at her, fell 
on me, my brothers and yourself. Oh, it’s the climax- 
revenge to lay open with giant thrusts, monstrous and 
keen, vein and nerve. One may mar a good purpose 
by pursuing it cruelly. Were not your efforts to set 
my mother right severe, sometimes ? ” 

“ Did the eloquent Hospitaler put these fine words 
together for thee, girl ? ” testily questioned Sir Charle- 
roy. 

“ No matter who sent them, if they be true words. 
If you get angry. I’ll be wounded. You need not try 
hard to hurt me. I will strive to be all filial, while all 
loyal ; but not more so to father than to mother.” 

** Well, but she was a rheumatism to me.” 

So be it ; still she was part of you. Does one dis- 
member a limb that aches, or give it tenderer care than 
all others ? ” 

‘ It is better,’ ” said Solomon, ‘ to dwell in the wil- 
derness, than with a contentious and angry woman.’ I 
got heartily weary of an ache that ached because it 
ached.” 

I’ll place Joseph by Solomon.” 

“ Pray, how ? ” 

“ He espoused Mary and was with her, yet apart ; 
thus showing God’s idea of the needs of weary moth- 
ers in their trying hours, when giving their strength to 
another being. Joseph was kept as a lover only, until 
after Jesus was born, that his services might have a 
lover’s tenderness. I have heard that the manhood of 
Jesus reflected the sweetness of Mary; Joseph kept his 
wife in those days sweet, so the kindness of that noble 
spouse lived after all, an immortal influence. Joseph, 


Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two Living Ones, 443 

through Mary in part, determined the bodily traits of 
the child Jesus; the latter influences all time.” 

“ Why, truly, thou hast found a beautiful flower, 
Miriamne, and I’m wondering that I never saw it be- 
fore in Mary’s life. But, finally, I tell thee I loved 
Rizpah as my soul at first.” 

“ Oh, yes ; you both loved with almost volcanic ar- 
dor. My mother told me so ; but this very power and 
inclination of passionate loving gave you each for the 
other power ot dreadfully hurting.” 

Well, we’ll speak further of this, perhaps, another 
time. The hyacinth lures me to Ichabod’s tomb.” 

“ The rose, emblem of Mary, flower of wedded love, 
is sweeter than the hyacinth. Go home to Bozrah, 
father, I beseech you, so you may prove yourself still 
a Knight of Saint Mary.” 

“ Home? I’ve none ! Bozrah is grim ruins within, 
without. There, as only fit and in fit dwellings, abide 
the cormorant and hyena. All hopes that ever centred 
in that place for me were but dancing satyrs at the 
last ; all loves but eagles with hot-iron beaks, which 
devoured the hearts that fed them, then fled away ! I 
hate Bozrah ! ” 

“You have a wife and children there. I a mother. 
Where the brood is, there is home. Bozrah has no 
gloom for us, save such as we make for it. It may 
be a glad place yet. Remember that Kidron and Gol- 
gotha were made all beautiful by the fidelity of Mary 
and the cross-bearing of Jesus.” 

“ Miriamne, this parley is useless. Once for all, hear 
me. Before I wed thy mother I took upon my soul 
an impious, almost desperate, vow, that I’d possess 
her though the possessing ruined me. The strong, 


/j 44 'The Queen of the House of David. 

hopeful Knight of the Cross was domineered over by 
his love. Before this I had some commendable prin- 
ciples and a little piety. What am I now, after long 
driftings about through wasted years of prime? I’m 
the wreck of a man ; less ! a part of a wreck, trying to 
get made over in a meaner pattern out of the frag- 
ments left. Thy mother unmade me ! ” 

‘‘Adam said something like that of Eve.” 

“ Don’t interrupt me, Miriamne. The Jewish maiden 
Zainabgave Mohammed, of Bozrah, the poisoned lamp 
which ruined his health ; the Jewish Rizpah has such a 
lamp. See me, wrinkled, hair whitened, all too soon ; 
chivalry, morality and piety dragged out of me bit by 
bit. I stand here the_ caricature of what I was or what 
I should be. I’m fit for neither war nor courtship. 
I’d make a pretty show attempting to court Rizpah ! 
I’ve forgotten how such things are done, and, besides. 
I’m not the original Sir Charleroy she wed. Let her 
find him, or his counterfeit, and be happy. The origi- 
nal Sir Charleroy and Rizpah loved each other desper- 
ately, but these that I know hate each other as desper- 
ately. I tell thee it would be legalized adultery for 
these latter two to live under the same roof, pleading as 
justification the vows of the other two! Miriamne, I tell 
thee that thou mayst tell it on the house tops, or hill tops, 
as I’ll cry it through eternity, if permitted. Sir Charleroy 
and Rizpah, of Gerash and Bozrah, died long ago ! The 
devil stole their bodies, put an imp’s spirit in each, and 
then parted them forever. If they ever meet it will 
be by the fiend’s device, that he may revel over their 
warrings with each other ! Ah, ha I What the Roman 
arena was to the blood-thirsty populace, such to the 
fiends the homes of the world when full of tumults!” 


Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two Living Ones, 445 

And Miriamne, alarmed by the outbreak, tried to 
calm her father ; • 

“ Oh, father, you will need mercy some day ; merit 
it by bestowing it. You suffer an unforgiving spirit to 
inflame your passion ! " 

“Forgiving? What’s the use? I’ve vainly tried 
mercy ! ” 

“Try once more. The injured have resource so long 
as they have power to forgive. Remember Him who 
in the great extremity cried : ‘ They kjiow not what 
they do ! ’ Trust Rizpah once more ! ” 

“ I do not see the shadow of a peg on which to hang 
a trust.” 

“You, a Teutonic Knight of St. Mary!” 

“ Thank God Mary was not a Rizpah ! ” 

“Mary had the trust of Joseph in those dire days, 
when nothing but a miracle could prove her integrity. 
She presents not only woman’s goodness but that which 
even the loftiest wife needs, the constancy beyond 
measure of her husband.” 

“ Joseph was advised by an angel. I not.” 

“As you love your mother, honor the woman who 
mothers your children. They bear your image, yet she 
alone, with a sublime self-forgetting, struggles to have 
them grow up honorably, purely, and in the fear of God.” 

“She wants to make them Israelites.” 

“Perhaps so, and perhaps the Christian examples 
she has seen give her no reason to wish otherwise. But 
after all, her way is better than to have left them as 
their father left them, to become infidels or nothing. 
Oh, father, do not think me bold. I speak because I 
love you ; as perhaps no other might care or presume 
to give utterance.” 


44^ The Queen of the House of David. 

Well, girl, I guess I’m a double man ; for, deter- 
mined to oppose, I feel a desire within to have thee 
win in this argument. I’m one compound of contradic- 
tions. I was a sworn bachelor, then a sworn husband, 
now I’m neither. I’m a widower, with a living wife ; 
a parent of three children with only one. I bewail my 
homelessness, yet run from an offered home. I confess 
to being useless, yet see a mission most important at 
my own door. Swearing loyalty to Mary, I disregard 
all she exemplified — of late revealed to me ; professing 
to be a Christian, I live a life that would shame a de- 
cent J ew. I have a daughter, said by all to be much like 
me in temper, feature, and mind, yet we are here utterly 
opposed in thought and purpose. I’ve heard the pro- 
foundest teachers in grandest temples unmoved to this 
duty, to-day presented ; and, now, without the pale of 
any church, in the wilds of Jericho, a mere girl, my 
daughter, instructs me well! This all proves that I’m 
the caricature of Miriamne’s father. If I be Sir Char- 
leroy, then I’m beside myself ! ” 

“A good half confession! Now for the atone- 
ment 1 ” 

“What, a bundle of contradictions making atone- 
ment ? undoing the past ! more contradictions?” 

“ Righteousness displaces all the contradictions of 
life ! ” 

“ I could make no atonement except by contradict- 
ing a score of years, and going to Bozrah ! Now hear 
me finally ; by the glory of God, alive. I’ll never go to 
Rizpah’s house ! ” 

Miriamne felt that further persuasion would be futile. 
She made a last request, then. 

Will my father take me to the outskirts of that 


Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two Living Ones. 447 

city? ril enter alone to comfort the woman who, 
notwithstanding her faults, I believe to be the noblest 
of mothers. She may not have a husband ; she has a 
daughter.” 

As the father and daughter rested at noon, not far 
from the Giant City, some days after the foregoing 
events, they beheld a single horseman from toward 
Bozrah speeding along the great southern highway. 

“I think he’s a Jew and in peaceful pursuit. I’ll 
hail him,” said the knight, “ in the language of Gali- 
lee.” 

The rider, hearing the call, halted. Glancing about 
him he discovered the source of the call, and promptly 
reined his steed toward where the pilgrims were sitting. 
Instantly he began in short, quick sentences: 

“Wonder ; the face of a Frank, the garb of a Turk, 
the voice of a Jew ! An old man, a young woman ! A 
Moslem in company with his slave? No, she sits by 
his side ! A harem favorite ? No ! She is not veiled! 
Ye do not look cunning enough for magicians, too cun- 
ning to be pilgrims ; not pious enough, old man, to be a 
priest, and too pious-looking to be a robber.” 

“True, Laconic,” said the knight, “ I’m at no loss as 
to thee.” 

“So it seems! But pray, Christian, Jewish, Druses, 
Turks, who are ye? ” 

“'We’re pilgrims, good runner.” 

“ Ha, ha ; these pilgrims are a mad-lot, with piebald 
customs ! ” 

“What news, runner?” 

“ What news ! A plague in Bozrah ! De Griffin’s 
twins are nigh to death — De Griffin? May be thou 
knowest him? Thou dost look like him ; but he’s d^ad. 


443 The Queen of the House of David. 

Now his twins have no nurses nor mourners, but Riz- 
pah, and I’m racing to Gerash to see if I can find a soul 
to swell her wailings.” 

The rider turned his horse and with a word, ^'Selametf 
— “ peace,” was gone. 

Miriamne had heard enough, and now, with re- 
doubled vehemence, reopened her arguments and ap- 
peals to her father to go to her home. 

“ ril not go into Rizpah’s house. I tell thee thou 
art inviting me into hell j ” 

Miriamne, in turn, replied: “There is good any- 
where for those that earnestly seek it. Mohammed, 
they say, got his first inspiration in Bozrah, and he a 
Moslem, a crescent devotee ! ” 

“Yes ; he wed a rich wife there, too, and she was a 
saint. I may envy him in these things.” 

The young woman hastily entered the city and 
stopped for a little time at the mission house of Father 
Adolphus, briefly, hurriedly, to announce her return, 
inquire the latest report concerning the illness of her 
brothers, and to beseech the old priest to go out after 
her father ; if possible, to bring him into the city and 
to the desolate fireside. 

“Well, well; there, now. I’d call thee bee or hum- 
ming-bird, truly, darting from point to point, subject to 
subject, if I didn’t know I was talking to an angel.” 

The sincere compliment was unheard by Miriamne, 
for she was gone ere it was sounded. The old man 
shaded his eyes, looked after her a few moments, then 
girding himself, hobbled down the street to seek at the 
city’s outskirt the waiting knight. 

And Miriamne, with heart beating high, sped on 
homeward. But as she approached it she slackened 


Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two Living Ones. 449 

her pace, with questionings as to how she had best en- 
ter, so as to secure loving welcome and in no wise per- 
turb by sudden surprise. She saw her mother through 
the doorway, bowed and swinging back and forth. The 
girl’s heart divined all ; “ My brothers are dead ! ” The 
mother seemed oblivious to all about her, and Miri- 
amne hesitated on the threshold. Just then the runner 
galloped up to the open door, reined his steed, and ex- 
claimed : Out of sight, out of mind ! Death, like 
poverty, sifts our friends! Ye can hire mourners 
cheaper at Bozrah than at Gerash, and there are none 
to be had without coins ! Gerash is distant. I had no 
coins, and was a fool to start, wise to return I ” It was 
Laconic, and he was gone before any reply was given. 
Rizpah didn’t even lift up her head to notice his com- 
ing or going. 

Miriamne was glad of the circumstance, for the 
runner gave her words with which to enter : A daugh- 
ter never forsakes.” She spoke thus, very softly. 

Rizpah, perhaps not recognizing the voice, moaned 
on, swaying as she moaned : 

^‘Mother, mother?” 

Rizpah slowly lifted her eyes to the speaker ; then, 
either by a masterful self-control or because sorrow 
dazed, she slowly and without emotion, addressed the 
maiden : 

Thou here? So, then, my three are safe together, 
before my eyes, in death. Thou wert buried years 
ago.” 

Without another word the daughter and sister 
quietly moved to the forms lying beside the mother, 
and knelt down, bowing, her one arm flung over the 
corses. Presently she reached out her hand and it 


450 The Queen of the House of David. 

met a warm clasp from her mother. The maiden knew 
full well that it meant welcome. It was death’s vic- 
tory ; expressive, unspoken eloquence. There were 
four hearts ; two still in death ; two alive and breaking, 
but the dead hearts somehow drew the living ones 
together and then they beat as one, each all comfort- 
ing to the other. Two dead hearts bridged the gulf 
between two living ones. There followed the embrace 
and kiss of peace, and then Rizpah questioned : 

“ Wilt stay with me a little while, my only — ? ” there- 
upon she sobbed and was relieved. 

“Stay? Yes, always! But when, the burial?” 

“ At once ! It’s the plague and the law requires 
promptness. O Death, thou didst do thy bitterest for 
Rizpah ! ” 

Rizpah soon rose up and began to busy herself about 
the bodies. 

“ Mother, tell me how to aid you.” 

“Yea, as I need. Thou and I wilt carry them to 
the cave of entombment.” 

“But will there be no funeral rites? ” 

“ I’ll perform such ; keeping vigil as Rizpah of old. 
My children were crucified, as were hers. All man- 
kind turned from us in our stress, and so they died in 
want.” 

“ But, mother, the watching would kill you 1 ” 

“ Thou dost comfort me, now. Oh, I’d be over- 
joyed, if I only knew for certainty that death would 
court me at my vigil.” 

Softly Miriamne spoke : 

“ Sir Charleroy is at Bozrah.” 

“Now thou makest Bozrah seem afar. Oh, the 
garments of people may brush together passing, but 


Two Dead Hearts Uniting Two Livmg Ones. 45 1 

still to all things else the passers be eternities apart,” 
replied quickly, and yet with cool self-possession, 
Rizpah. 

“ Death, that cools the pulses, also subdues the 
asperities. I could not hate an enemy if I met him 
amid his dead,” persuasively responded the maiden. 

‘‘ Imperious, fanatical, stubborn Charleroy ! change- 
able in all but his determination to make conquest of 
the faith of others. Then, I can not ask his pardon 
for my serving God. Liberty came to Egypt because 
the mothers of captive Israel were faithful. So says 
our Talmud.” 

“ Sir Charleroy respects at least, fidelity.” 

“Then 'tis well to have me die. He never did me 
justice to my face ; let him embalm me in honey after 
Tm dead, as Herod did the wife he murdered. It’s a 
way of some husbands. But we must be moving, 
daughter ; I’ye prepared two biers. The plague is a 
stern messenger, nor leaves room for any dallying.” 

And Bozrah witnessed a strange, sad spectacle. Two 
roughly constructed burial couches ; on each a body, 
and two women, the one aged, the other youthful, both 
bowed with grief, slowly bearing the biers away, down 
to the tomb-hill. The elder directed ; and so they 
went ; first a little way forward with one body, then 
returning to advance the other. There were no 
mourners following ; the passers-by offered no help ; 
the women of the city drew tVieir doors shut, and the 
children playing in the streets, when they beheld this 
funeral procession, fled away with subdued exclama- 
tions. 

The ancient Rizpah, watching her dead on their 
crosses, was standing that time in her valley of “ dry 


452 The Queen of the House of David, 

bones;” her imitator, Rizpah de Griffin, was now 
walking through that same valley. Both made pitiable 
by desolation. Neither was able to hide her dead from 
her sight by looking for the hope of the blessed resur- 
rection. Their loving had been fierce enough, but the 
soul-reviving Spirit of the prophet’s vision was not yet 
seen to be in the valley for them. The two Rizpahs were 
^‘mothers of sorrow,” but followed no cross that had 
on it besides “ death,” “ victory.” They went with 
tears, but not held by a love that triumphs in “ leading 
captivity captive.” These ancient Jewish mothers 
may be put in striking contrast with the Davidic Queen 
Mary, who wept from the Judgment Hall, past the 
cross, past the tomb, up to the chamber of Pentecost, 
from which she viewed the transports of the Ascension 
of her Son, her Saviour, her King.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 


“ THE KNIGHT OF ST. MARY ” AND RIZPAH AT THE 
GRAVE OF THEIR SONS. 

“ Courage, for life is hasting 
To endless life away ; 

The inner fires unwaiting, 

Transfigure our dull clay.” 

'K' * * 

Lost, lost are all our losses ; 

Love set forever free ; 

The full life heaves and tosses 
Like an eternal sea ; 

One endless, living story ; 

One poem spread abroad. 

And the sun of all our glory 
Is the countenance of God.” 

- —George McDonald. 

“ I am ascending unto my Father and your Father, and to my 
God and your God.” — JNO. xx. 17. 

HE Teutonic knight was standing in silent 
contemplation of a pile of ruins, from the 
center of which rose a number of stately 
columns like so many mourners about a 
grave. These were all left of a stately old temple. 
Art had done -nobly here once ; now desolation was 
master, even the name of the structure being forgot- 
ten. The priest approached, questioning within him- 
self as to how he would address Sir Charleroy-, when 






454 The Queen of the House of David. 

they met. As he drew nearer, he thought here are two 
temples in decay. There came to his mind out of the 
distant past a vision of Sir Charleroy as he was when 
he stood erect, ruddy-cheeked and every wit a man by 
his bride’s side, the time of the wedding at Damascus. 
The priest, contrasting the man before him, r.ow aged 
and solemn faced, with what he was then, thought “ of 
the two ruined temples, the man is the sadder one. A 
quarter of a century slipping over a life, though with 
noiseless feet, generally leaves its tracks ; if pain and 
passion have been the companion of the years, havoc 
is wrought.” Solemnly, and in measured tones, the 
priest’s meditations having given him free utterance, 
he spoke, quoting the words long before sadly pro- 
nounced by the Savior concerning Jerusalem’s holy 
place : “ Destroy this temple and m three days 1 will 

raise it upP 

Sir Charleroy slowly, very slowly, turning his eyes 
upon the speaker, observed him from head to foot, but 
uttered not a word. 

Again the priest spoke : “ Time has so changed both 
knight and priest, that they forget themselves ; nor is 
it therefore wonderful, they should not remember each 
other.” 

“ Father Adolphus ! Miriamne’s work ? ” 

“ What matter whose act if we see God back of the 
actor. I’ve a message from on high ! ” 

‘‘ Why, thou dost astound me ! ” 

“ Methinks no man more needs astounding. May 
righteousness enter the gates opened ‘by wonder, and ‘ 
so move thee into Rizpah’s home and thine ; death is 
there ! ” 

Is there ? has been ! When love was slain, I shut 


The Knight of Si. Mary ** and Rizpah, etc. 455 

out its bleeding form with the mourning robes of a 
long forgetfulness. 

“ There are hopes that die to live no more ; so there 
are homes which bereft of their household Penates are 
doomed to grim ruin forever. Sec these giant dwell- 
ings. They tell it all. 

“Thou art a Christian, I believe; but like the disci- 
ples, Cleopas and Luke, with eyes holden ; not discern- 
ing the Lord. 

“Just as some, having embalmed the body, looked 
into the tomb at a napkin only, seeing merely the 
place where He lay. Though puzzled that the grave’s 
seal was broken, they were still blind to the miracle of 
a new dawn, simultaneous with the unclasping of 
night’s grim arms. They had heard of the resurrection 
to be, yet they reasoned that the Promiser was surely 
dead. Love alone, in the person of Mary Magdalene, 
most loving because most forgiven, overleaped all 
doubts, disappointments and fears, to hie away in the 
thinning darkness, in an utter abandonment to her 
trust in the words of Him, to whom her heart was 
given. That was love indeed.” 

“ Oh, priest, ’tis so. A woman ; a woman ; leading 
in religion ! I do not much bepraise her, for she, be- 
ing a woman, easily could believe, where men 
doubted.” 

“ It would have been cruel to have crossed her faith, 
would it not. Sir Charleroy ? ” 

“Yes, on my soul, yes ! ” 

“ Then go to the bier of thy boys. Let love over- 
leap all obstacles.” 

“But let me rest, priest. I’ve had the full draught 
of trouble’s cup. I’m quit of further conflict.” 


45 6 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ Thou belie vest ? Listen: 

*‘To whom also he shewed himself alive after His 
passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 
forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to 
the kingdom of God 

Christian Cross-bearing knight, hear me ! The 
suffering Savior could never have revealed Himself, 
as the Almighty, Risen Christ, if there had been no 
cross. By what He suffered He had gain of power. 
Thy wrinkles, disciplines and all such like, fit thee now 
to minister in the chamber of death ; even where now 
of all places on earth, thou art needed.’' 

“ But my case is so peculiar, my home so un- 
natural ! ” 

“Is there no balm in Gilead, Sir Charleroy? If 
thou and she have been great sinners, He’s a great Sa- 
vior, and more, a patient one. Hast thou thought 
how He lingered near His followers in an overplus of 
love, lured from the triumphs of heaven, to personally 
deal, all comfortingly, all encouragingly, peculiarly 
with individuals? For thirty-three years in the flesh 
he wandered about, doing good, healing all those op- 
pressed of the devil ; but the finest hours of all His 
life lay in those forty days between the resurrection 
and the ascension. Well might He say to Mary: 
* Touch me not,’ when in love, she fain would have 
retarded Him by sentimental fondling. Listen now: 

“ I have not yet ascended : Go to my disciples, say 
to them: I ascend unto my Father and your Father, 
to my God and your God ! ’ He was making a sublime 
ascent along golden steps, and the number of those 
steps were ten and two, even as the number of Israel’s 
tribes.” 


The Knight of St. Mary^^ and Rizpaky etc. 457 

^‘I do not comprehend this mysticism, though the 
word-frame is beautiful.” 

“ Then know it. On the cross, Immanuel cried : ‘ It 
is finished ! ’ Glorious salvation’s work was finished ; 
but then He lingered still to bless, especially His 
friends. Cbunt the steps. He appeared first to Mary 
Magdalene^ out of whom he had cast the seven devils 
and who doubtless clung to the Savior, her only hope, 
her only deliverance from the awful realities of the trag- 
edy in her soul. Thy Rizpah was never so ill as Mag- 
dalene, yeit surely she is worthy as much tenderness.” 

“Secondly. Jesus appeared to His mother ; love’s ap- 
pearing. I see her now, in mind, by the record here 
unnamed — left in the sacred privacy of her grief ; too 
stricken to minister, but close to the triumph, because 
all needful of its blessing. I see a third step — Jesus, 
by special appointment, meeting the backsliding fish- 
erman of Tiberias, now gone away to his nets, per- 
suading himself he had done and suffered enough, even 
as does Sir Charleroy to-day.” 

“ I’ve been called Pilate. Go on. Call me Peter ; I 
can bear it.” 

“ Fourthly. The Christ joined Luke and Cleopas, the 
Greek proselytes, now doubters ; but the chill of their 
misgivings was burned away in hearts inflamed, while 
they journeyed to Emmaus.” 

“ Now call me Luke-Cleopas, priest. I’ve the chill 
of the doubts, I’m sure.” 

“ Fifthly. He came to His own little church-of-the 
upper-room, to breathe on it peace and to display His 
all-convincing body; then He waited a week for a 
special unfoldment to Thomas, the all-doubter, leav- 
ing him filled with all faith.” 


45 ^ The Queen of the House of David. 

“Oh, that He’d come to Sir Charleroy ! ” said the 
knight. 

‘ He does, but the knight’s eyes are holden, and he 
starves while toiling for fish in a dead sea. Listen to 
these words by the shore of Tiberias : 

“‘Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye 
any meat? They answered him, No. 

“ ‘And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right 
side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast there- 
fore, and now they were not able to draw it for the 
multitude of fishes. 

“ ‘Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none 
of the disciples durst ask him. Who art thou? knowing 
that it was the Lord. 

“‘Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth 
them, and fish likewise.’ 

“ Oh, Sir Charleroy, cast in the net on the right side, 
then come and dine.” 

“ But I’m an odd man; not like others.” 

“ He that is All Fullness later appeared to niulti- 
tudes of every clime, the representatives of the Church 
universal, ever full of odd people ; again to the apostle 
of good works, James, called the pillar of faith. The 
tenth appearing was at Bethany, as the blesser and 
promiser to all. After that he showed himself to Paul, 
proof that he was a returning Christ, and, last of all, 
to John on Patmos. This the John that was care-taker 
of Mary, the mother; John, the all-loving. I read each 
page of the glowing Apocalypse as a love-letter from 
heaven to a mother, from a Son who carries eternally 
within His glorious heart the image of the woman 
great chiefly for her great love of Him. She loyally 
followed Him to the grave ; He lovingly followed her 


The K 7 iigkt of St. Mary ** and Rizpah, etc. 459 

beyond it. When he set John to picturing heaven as 
a virgin-bride and His Church as a woman clothed 
with the sun, Christ had surely the choicest of women, 
Mary, in His heart." 

“ And the Heart of Heaven might well lovingly re- 
member the mystical Rose," quoth the knight. 

“ As heaven loved Mary, so should noble men love 
‘ bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh,’ as Christ 
loved the Church and gave Himself for it I' 

“ Thou wert never wed, good priest ? " 

“ No ; perhaps ’tis well so. I’ve had a work in help- 
ing those who were wed unhappily, to peace ; forget- 
ting, in serving their need, my own joy." 

“ Then thou hast no idea of what it is to deal with 
a Rizpah as a wife." 

“ I know she’s a woman; a marvel in her fidelity to 
her children. She may have infirmities, but there was 
a woman, bowed grievously for eighteen years, fully re- 
stored by one kind touch of the man, Jesus, ever all- 
pitiful and tender toward women." 

“ But that one was willing to be healed." 

No ; she was trying to hide, but the Savior called 
her out, just to heal her." 

Now, then, let me cross swords at close quarters, 
since thou dost press me. I ask thee, as a Christian 
priest, wouldst thou have me tolerate the sins of 
heresy in my own home? Remember, Jezebel, she be- 
beguiled Ahab, her daughter, Athaliah, and her hus- 
band, Jehoram, also, into gravest transgressions. So 
God’s people were led, little by little, to the groves of 
Astarte. I think I’ve a good parallel : Jezebel was the 
daughter of a priest, so this Rizpah of Bozrah. With 
her hot temper, pride of exalted birth, and a 


46o The Queen of the House of David. 

mouthful of arguments ; a man meets such a woman 
as a pigmy, to crouch, or as a knight, to resist.” 

The name Jezebel means ‘chaste.’ Her pious 
namers must have respected chastity once. Her prac- 
tices were all loyalty to Ahab and her children, though 
her theories may have been odious. All that is re- 
corded of them, which engenders hate for her mem- 
ory, is the hatefulness of the way she pressed her 
creeds upon others, the jews. Which the more like 
jezebel— Sir Gharleroy or Rizpah?” 

“ But Rizpah was ardent to lay our love, and our 
children on her altar. Like the women who brought 
their jewels to Aaron to be transmuted into the golden 
calf! I could only protest, and I did.” 

“ Did not the men of Egypt and Israel first proclaim 
the worship of Apis? Were not the women merely 
following their lords? There are many women who 
defile their jewels because, with contempts that turn 
their hearts to ashes, their lords do not, as they 
should, wear both the wives and the jewels on strong 
and loyal hearts.” 

“ Oh, I perceive I Rizpah has been parading to thee 
her family troubles. A true woman would have rather 
given herself to nest-hiding.” 

“Thou hast not hidden thy nest, but, like a wander- 
ing bird, fled it.” 

“ She never asked my aid ; she left me in London.” 

The knight was charging blindly, and defeated. 

“ It was not for her to crave, but for thee to lavishly 
bestow. She left thee ? What better could Abigail have 
done than turn her beautiful countenance and good un- 
derstanding away from churlish Nabal, who lived chiefly 
to gloat about the cross on which he had placed her ? ” 


The Knight of Si. Mary and Rizpah, etc. 461 

Does the sacrist advocate divorce ?” 

“ No ! No rupture of the tie sealed in heaven ; but 
when by recriminations a home becomes a living 
burial, a hell, then two houses are better than one. I 
feel here keenly, knight. My mother had a monstrous 
man, my father, in wedlock. He left her to battle 
single-handed for her little ones. Her patient, sad 
face comes ever before me. Oh, how she eschewed all 
other men, though courted by worthier than he j how 
she strove to hide my father’s faults and taught us, his 
children, to try to respect him ( 1 was but a youth 

when he died, but I tell thee’ I dared hot look upon his 
coffined face lest I should euf^e’ hiriilj then and there !*' 

The knight cowered as if from a malediction. 

“ There, there ! fof heaven's sake pause. Sacrist ! 
Abashed at home, lashed by the teacher of the faith 
I’ve suffered to defend. I’ll be driven to flee to the 
wandering Bedouin, or to death ! ” 

“ They say Lucifer, unable to commit suicide, plunges 
headlong into the abyss when thwarted in any design.’ 

“Call me Lucifer; another epithet !” 

“ There are no black gulfs into which thou canst flee 
from the memories which conscience points to when 
duty is contemned.” 

“ Is it the priest’s purpose to harass my soul? ” 

“No ; but rather to lead it back to its peace that 
thou didst leave long ago. There is only one way of re- 
turn, that a very Via Dolorosa. Mary along it walked 
with her son, her God and Savior, to the cross and the 
resurrection ! By the cross God gives, we go to our 
glory.” 

“ I’ve tried my best to be a loyal, Christian knight. 
Give me, at least, that award.” 


462 The Queen of the tiouse of David. 

“ I can not praisfe justly ; I dare not flatter ; I must 
in all faithfulness say thou hast yet to learn the alpha- 
bet of loyalty, as interpreted by that glorious pair, 
Mary and the Christ — the triumphant Eve, the tri- 
umphant Adam. Thou hast been following afar off, 
nearer the flickering of Judas’ illusive lantern than to 
Him who pleaded amid His griefs, all self-forgetting, 
with His Roman guards to let His little band of follow- 
ers depart unharmed. The woman whom thou ex- 
altest as the queen of hearts is, after all, not thy 
pattern. Judas and Mary are in lasting contrast ; he 
all treason, she fidelity’s choicest fruit. It is well 
to see to it to which one is the nearer. Oh, Geth- 
semane, garden of touching contrasts ! There love 
was most grossly interpreted by the shrines of Baaltis ; 
there most grandly interpreted by love’s sublimest 
offering that night the Saviour agonized. There 
twice the enemy of man did his almost worst ; once 
by the rites of the groves, once in the wracking tempt- 
ations of the Man of Sorrows. The arch-fiend was 
baffled, and then the ingenuity of hell was taxed to 
one last, most terrific and dastardly assault. What 
thinkest thou was the climax? The last effort to blot 
out the hope of man was made through betrayal by a 
kiss ; the finest sign of affection befouled by treason ! 
When the wedded betray each other, alas, for the 
world ! ” 

Sir Charleroy surrendered now, exclaiming: 

“ Oh, Father Adolphus ; agajn I see there is a mist 
on my knightly cross ! I’m unworthy to wear the sign. 
It has been an emblem of death ; I see it now an em- 
blem of life and love.” 

“ Will the knight look on the dead faces of his sons ? ” 


** The K 7 Light of St. Mary ” and Rizpah, etc. 463 

‘‘Yes, yes ! In the name of God, yes ! Lead me as 
a child, for I’m nothing more.” 

The knight was in the throes of transformation. 
He and the priest walked side by side, mostly in 
silence, broken anon, only by questions of Sir Charle- 
roy’s, like these : 

“Am I worth saving? Shall I ever become able to 
fully sound and truly express, in life, the depths of all 
thou hast told me ? And Rizpah ! what will Rizpah 
say or do ? ” 

The old priest answered ever : 

“ ‘ Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the 
dead, and Christ Himself shall give thee light ! ’ ” 

The lone burial cave was reached. Nigh the two 
biers stood Rizpah and Miriamne and but a little way 
off Sir Charleroy and the priest. The maiden, with 
surprised joy, saw the two men, but Rizpah, busy with 
her thoughts, never lifted her eyes. The latter drew a 
slab away from the entrance of the tomb and then 
moaned : “ Better I’d never been a mother.” 

Father Adolphus seized the opportunity to say in 
deep, entreating tones : 

“‘ I will ransom them from the power of the grave ; 
I will redeem them from death.’ ” 

The mother supposing it was some kindly neighbor, 
still unnoticing any thing but the speaker’s voice, 
moaned on, sitting nigh the tomb-door, between the 
dead, a hand on each. 

Then the old shepherd drew nearer, saying : 

“ Sisters of Israel, only believe. Beyond this stony 
gate there is an eternal home fairer than any dream. 
There all broken homes shall rise ii) joy, their treas-^ 
ures reunited and happy.” 


464 The Queen of the House of David 

Now Rizpah rose, and observing the speaker silently 
fora moment, she did not seem offended at the priest’s 
presence. Misery had overcome, at least for the time, 
her prejudice. . Presently she exclaimed ; 

“ My family reunited in heaven ? Ah ! that can not 
be, and if it were so, what joy to ever repeat the bick’ 
ering, blamings and wrongs of this poor miserable life? ” 

“ Thou wilt know as thou art known there and see 
eye to eye,” said the missioner. 

“ Oh, if it could be only so ! ” 

‘‘ Wouldst like it so ? ” 

“Yes, by the grave of my darlings, I swear it ! I 
loved them with my life madly. All the love I had 
was concentrated in them. I knew when I began idol- 
izing them that I had loved before full well my hus- 
band and daughter. I knew this, because the love I 
withdrew from them rushed forth to the boys. But my 
idols are dead, and now if my love do not dry up, 
it will hunger, feed on me myself, then turn to ferocity 
wolf-like.” 

“ Perhaps a husband restored may fill and enlarge 
thy heart. There never was a great sorrow but there 
stood near it a great joy,” spoke the priest. 

“ Ah, he is stubborn, I, perhaps, proud. Immensity 
is between me and Sir Charleroy.” 

“ Hast thou not yet had enough of pride’s dead sea 
apples ?” 

“ Alas ! why ask me ? ” 

“ If thou art ready for a better day, he may be.” 

“Ready? I’ve always been. What I did for con- 
science sake and these children is done. What he did 
to me he only can undo, as far as the past can bQ 
undone/' 


^'‘The Knight of St. Mary ” and Rizpah^ etc. 465 


Then Miriamme waved her hand to her father, un- 
seen by Rizpah, entreatingly, as if to say: “ Come, but 
not too quickly, a little nearer.’' 

Sir Charleroy complied and not as a laggard, for Riz- 
pah seemed changed from what she was in London. 
He now saw her as in those golden early days at Ger- 
ash. But the truth was, the change was chiefly in him- 
selj. 

Rizpah ! " 

“ Sir Charleroy de Griffin ! " replied the woman ad- 
dressed deliberately, and apparently emotionlessly, as 
she fixed her eyes upon the knight. Then her eyes 
turned toward the tomb, seemingly inviting his to fol- 
low there their course. She stepped back and glanced 
from man to tomb, by the glance' saying more plainly 
than words : 

“ That is thy work. Thou didst open that grave in 
my pathway." 

The knight stood by her side and put forth his hand 
to clasp hers, but with a respectfulness that betokened 
the cavalier and one not quite certain of his welcome. 

Then spake Father Adolphus : 

“ Remember Damascus, both of you. Come, Miri- 
amne," he continued, drawing the maiden aside, “ Fvia 
a giant’s grave to show thee." 

The priest and the maiden moved to a turn in the 
road and passed behind the crumbled wall of a Romaq 
palace. 

But, Father Adolphus, where now ? What of the 
giant’s grave? ’’ 

“ Be content, girl. I mean the grave of mad love 
grown to mad hate. It will be made and deep enough 
by’ thy parents, but they can best niake it alone." 


466 


The Queen of the House of David, 


And Miriamne fell upon her knees in silent, grateful 
prayer; a great burden that had borne her down for 
years seemed lifted from off her. The Miserere that 
had wailed through her life so long now changed to an 
Easter anthem. 

Father Adolphus after a time recalled her by a single 
question : 

Dost see the fierce woman and the vultures fleeing 
away before the coming of our Christian Mother of 
Sorrows ? " 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


THE ROSE, QUEEN OF HEARTS IN THE GIANT CITY. 

“ Around thy starry crown are wreathed 
So many names divine ! 

Which is the dearest to my heart 
And the most worthy thine ? 

♦ ♦ ♦ * t * 

‘ “ Mother of sorrows,' many a heart, 

Half broken by despair, 

Hath laid its burden by the cross, 

And found a mother there. 

‘ Mary' the dearest name of all. 

The holiest and the best. 

The first low word that Jesus lisped 
Laid on His mother s breast.” 

—A. A. Proctor. 

^^HERE had come a great change to the home 
of the De Griffins at Bozrah, without and 
within. Shrubs and vines grew about the 
old stone house in profusion, birds sang 
contentedly at its casements, and kittens, undisturbed, 
played around its doors. These were tokens of the new 
inner life. 

The queen of that domestic palace was happy; its 
king restored to his rights and duties; therefore there 
was abounding delight and peace within and without. 
Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, the two mature wed-lovers 
that abode there, had, out of all their estrangements 




468 The Queen of the House of David, 

and tribulations, come to understand at last that love 
grows out of law and is more than a sentiment, free to 
go when lured or flee from that which burdens. It was 
to them like a revelation from heaven to find that love 
is the vassal of the will and can be made to go where 
it ought, as well as be reined back from lawless rovings. 
They found there was great satisfaction in their efforts 
to be very agreeable to each other. Sir Charleroy con- 
stantly assured Rizpah of his belief that they were now 
more really lovers than they had been in those fervent 
days at Gerash. She believed this new creed with the 
avidity of a heart sore with long waitings for its pro- 
claiming. 

The knight bethought himself of a graceful advance, 
and introduced the matter with a sort of parable. “ I’ve 
been thinking to-day that the only man whom I ever 
felt like kissing, the man who loved me to the full of 
his great heart, is present with us in spirit these days 
to joy over our reconciliation. I’ve felt a strange thrill 
at times which made me think I was touched by the 
glowing heart of Ichabod.” 

“ Ichabod ? ” 

"‘Yes; he that fell in our defense the day of that 
perilous battle with those Mamelukes, near Gerash. 
Ah, he had the heart of a mastiff, the soul of a 
martyr ! ” 

“ Thy love is constant. But what’s in thy hand ? ” 

The knight had hoped for the question. 

‘‘A token I took from his corpse. It was given him 
by a Copt priest, whose life he saved in Egypt. See.” 

see a stone in a gold setting; on the stone an 
image, I think of a woman? I’ve noticed it with thee 
before.” 


The Rose^ Queen of Hearts in the Giant City» 469 

knew it! Once I thought thou didst observe it 
askance, as if a trifle jealous. Well, no more secrets, 
no more jealousies. What says Rizpah?” 

“ I say amen ; and yet I say tell all, or none ; either 
way I shall be content. Love’s trust, when full, has 
few questions and no doubts.” 

“Nobly spoken, but yet I must tell all. The image 
is of Neb-ta, from the country of Hamites.” 

“ What an odd figure ! Her head-dress, a basket ! ” 

“ The basket on her head and the little house by her 
side betoken that she was the presiding spirit of do- 
mestic life. I love Neb-ta! She ever reminds me of 
woman at her best, as a mother brooding her chicks.” 

“Praise be the Patriarchs; they left us testimonies 
which makes it needless to go to Egypt for precepts 
concerning home-love ! ” responded the wife. 

“But, Rizpah, thou dost' divert me! Wait; I’m 
coming around with the patriarchs, by way of Jerusa- 
lem, to Bozrah.” 

“ Now, that’s a fine parade ; I await it,” the woman, 
with quick reply, answered. 

“Tradition says this Neb-ta will stand before Osiris 
and Isis in the judgment ‘hall of truth,’ where another 
deity styled ‘divine wisdom ’ opens the books of men’s 
earthly deeds. As the great Anubis weighs them, 
Neb-ta stands by ready to cut away the failings of 
those weighed. When the scale of their merit is lack- 
ing, she herself leaps into it, to weigh it down in their 
behalf.” 

“A pretty myth for grim old Nile Land ! ” 

“ It proves man’s belief that at last he’ll need help.” 

“ It is strange those women degraders should have 
allotted one of that sex so fine a part in the hereafter.” 


470 The Queen of the House of David, 

** It illustrates the constant conviction in men’s hearts 
that woman’s sympathy abides to the last.” 

“ In some men’s hearts, say. All are not equally 
just.” 

“ I’ll be direct, Rizpah, and sincere. I’ve felt an in- 
describable unworthiness of all I enjoy here in the house 
saved and brightened by my wife. I’ve been saying, 

^ Oh, that some one like Neb-ta would cut off my fail- 
ings and enrich my merit.’ ” 

Sir Charleroy, after this long journey around about, 
felt relieved. He had made his confession and waited 
his absolution. 

Rizpah’s eyes brightened up, and, though bedewed, 
shone with the luster of gleaming affection. 

He knew full well how to interpret that look, and 
evinced the quality of the interpretation by quickly 
embracing her. There passed between them saluta- 
tions having the purity of manna, the lusciousness of 
Escol’s grapes. 

“Will Sir Charleroy need to go to Egypt for a 
Neb-ta ? ” 

“ No, never, while I’ve an all-forgiving, all-blessing 
Rizpah ! ” 

Encouraged by the success attending one simile, he 
attempted another later: 

“ I was thinking,” tenderly replied the knight, “ that 
I’ve sinned against God in the name of religion, and 
unconsciously offered ^ the female lamb.’ ” 

“Pardon my stupidity, but yet I do not gather what 
is thy meaning.” 

“ My Rizpah has been sacrificed for years.” 

“The wife tried to reply, “I’m no lamb without 
blemish;” but her tears and his passionate embrace, 


The Rose, Queen of Hearts in the Giant City, 471 

checked her utterance. To those without, there is 
much incomprehensible in the estrangements and rec- 
onciliations of human pairs, made utterly one in wed- 
lock. If, since the Incarnate died for love, and the 
Temple’s veil was rent, there has been on earth an un- 
revealed Holiest of Holy places, it has been where wed 
lives, alienated, have been reunited. It is like a sacri- 
lege to attempt its depicting to stranger eyes or ears. 
Many, for themselves, have been within that holy place ; 
each twain meeting its own peculiar and varied ex- 
periences. But, having come forth with a natural and 
most meritorious reverence for the events of such su- 
preme hours, they are wont to withdraw from human 
curiosity all that transpired, as completely as they hide 
from the world their souls’ dealings with God. They 
who have never been within that Holy Place, can not 
understand about what there transpires ; those that 
have been there, defend their sacred right to keep from 
all the world that which they saw and felt, by refusing 
to give audience to the experiences of others. 

Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, at the time of the foregoing 
conversation, entered serenely, lovingly that Holy 
Place. Then they took, as it were, wings of memory 
and shields of faith. The grim giant house was forgot- 
ten. Its walls seemed to thin away, until they had to 
themselves a broad, but secluded world. There was 
light, but not exposure ; repentance, mutual, and for- 
giveness, not only free, but in every syllable seeming to 
have balm for healing. There followed an unutterable 
sense of getting nearer and nearer to each other. They 
felt as if they had but one will, and that guided by 
God ; one mind, and that clear and heaven soaring. 
The only sense of being two, was in their beating 


472 The Queen of the House of David. 

hearts, and then two hearts seemed more blessed than 
one ; for being two, there was the joy of their beatings 
for and against each other. Words fail ; it would be 
sacrilege to go further. Let the curtain drop. Leave 
them with a thousand angels, winged and liveried in 
white, with wands of silence to keep watch and ward 
until morning ! 

On the morrow they knew that both had surren- 
dered and both conquered. And by a ‘paradox, to 
those uninitiated, each rejoiced as much in the sur- 
render each had made, as in the victory which had 
been won by the one defeated. Defeat and victory 
was their common wealth. There was a full com- 
munity between them, and that made both rich, 
whatever their possessings. Thenceforward, between 
them, there was perfect frankness and consideration ; 
no sarcasms, no recriminations, and hence no need 
of foils nor masks. Christ had captured the Crusader’s 
heart, and he was now, as never before, able to reveal 
the King of his soul to Rizpah. She moved uncon- 
sciously into a beauty of character like unto that of 
Mary, and her heart began singing a ‘ Magnificat.’ 
The woman was transformed, if possible, more com- 
pletely than the man. For years amid hurtings she 
had schooled herself to reticence, and had been an 
enigma to all who knew her; but now, under the 
rising of this new sun, she opened as the blossom of 
early spring. Sir Charleroy, indeed all who knew 
her, attested delight and surprise ; but Rizpah was 
as much surprised at herself as any other could be 
at her. 

“ I didn’t know I could,” she exclaimed often with 
laughter and tears. She seemed to break away and 


The Rose, Queen of Hearts in the Giant City. 473 

run from her former self as one from some phan- 
tom, as a child from a reputed witch, or a freed 
bird from a prisoning cage. She saw herself grow- 
ing in all these things every moment and exclaimed, 
in the rush of feeling; “ I could fly. I’m sure!” Then 
tenderly, “ I would not, my mate, for a thousand worlds, 
unless thou couldst fly with me. No, no, Charleroy,watch 
my wings ; they are thine ; cut them if they grow or 
flatter for rising. If they do, they’ll do it themselves, 
without my willing.” Again the sacredness of the 
holiest came over them. 

“ Oh, Rizpah, I know, I knew this wealth of love 
was in thee; I’ve wondered often why I could not find 
it.” 

I did not know it, my lover king ; I’m glad thou 
hast found it, for thy finding feeds me with light and 
glory ! I’m carried back to Gerash and Damascus.” 

‘‘ I think not. There were flaming swords at Eden’s 
Gate, after the fall. No going back ; but the swords 
gave light for departure into broader places. I think 
that’s the symbol of the sword and the flame, Rispah.” 
Again he spoke : “ Hadrian built a temple of Venus 
over the tomb of Christ, but Hadrian and Venus are 
no more in power and there has been a resurrection 
from that tomb.” 

‘‘ Ah, Sir Charleroy, I’m a child in thy creed, but I’m 
comforted by thy resurrection hopes, especially since 
conversing yesterday more freely than ever with our 
lovely child of God, Miriamne.” 

Hers is an angel’s visit, wife.” 

•‘^And angel-like, with filial spirit, she comes, this 
time, with request for our consent to an act of great 
jmpprt to her.” 


474 Queen of the House of David, 

So ; and what may it be ? Though I know it can 
only be good.” 

“She came to tell us, that she desires publicly to 
profess the religion of the Naz of Jesus.” 

Sir Charleroy felt a twinge of an old pain, and for a 
moment queried within : “ Will the old struggle over 
faiths again confront us?” But he dismissed it with 
an unexpressed “ Impossible, we’re allchanged ! ” Then 
replied he quietly with a question. “ Does the dear 
girl fully understand the seriousness of the act? If she 
do and then acts, I’ll be glad to commit her to Christ 
as her Bridegroom and King.” 

“We cannot be with her always, and she seems de- 
termined to go through life unwed.” 

“A Neb-ta, an angel spinster, mothering other peo- 
ple’s chicks ! But what says my Rizpah of our daugh- 
ter’s purpose to profess her faith ? ” 

“I? This: God being my Helper, I’ll never again 
stand between Him and any soul, except it be to pray 
for that soul’s health.” 

Just then the maiden entered bearing a lamp which 
suddenly lighted the room, now well nigh in darkness. 
She presented a most striking and suggestive figure. 
Her eyes were full of her heart’s chief question, and, 
standing in the light of her own bearing, she seemed 
to fitly represent the part she had borne in that house- 
hold. 

Sir Charleroy, anticipating his daughter’s question, 
greeted her with promptness thus : “ Sunshine, thy 
purpose I know. It’s all between God and thyself. 
Go gladden Father Adolphus and Cornelius with an 
early profession.” 

She was filled with surprise, and voiced its chief cause: 


The RosCy Queen of Hearts in the Giant City, 475 

“ Cornelius ? He’s at Jerusalem ! " 

“Well, if so, ’tis wonderful, since I met him here 
to-day.” 

“ I wonder,” she meditated, meanwhile speaking her 
thoughts as if unconscious of those about her, “What 
brought him here?” 

“Oh,” replied the father, “he says ‘to see Father 
Adolphus about the church of Jerusalem ; ’ but Father 
Adolphus says ‘the young man came because he could 
not help it, to see his good angel.’ ” 

“ ‘ His good angel ! ’ Whom ? ” 

“ Now, Sunrise, guess ! When thou dost so, to make 
short work, begin with the good angel of us all, Miri- 
amne.” 

Miriamne lifted her hand reprovingly, but the tell- 
tale crimson hung confession on her cheeks, while her 
lips, wreathed in smiles, told her pleasure. 

“ Well, now, will my father go with me to good 
Adolphus about my profession ?” 

“ As thou mayst like, but it will be easier to reduce 
three to two than four to two! ” 

Again the uplifted, reproving hand and the blush 
and Miriamne ran out. 

******** 

“ Do not reopen that question settled once ; it can 
only pain us both to recur to it.” 

“ ‘ Reopened ! ’ ‘ Settled ! ’ ” exclaimed Cornelius. 

“ Not with me. Nothing in silence can settle it ; and it 
is always open to me, sleeping or waking.” 

“ The consciousness of duty done comes like the 
breezes of Galilee, turning all meanings to a song within 


476 The Quee*n of the House of David, 

“ Oh, Miriamne-, who is it decrees that we, belonging, 
all, each, to the other, should be torn asunder ruthlessly ? 
Duty, conscience ! Hard metallic words when they 
describe the links of a chain! Ah, our misconceptions 
often bind us to pain ; this one I cannot bear ! ” 

“ And yet, Cornelius, you told me in that Adriatic, 
storm you could as easily drown a passion rising 
against righteousness as you could drown the body 
then, by a plunge into the billows ! ” 

‘‘You held me back when I moved forward to show 
how easily I could make the plunge.” 

“ But then you had no intention of leaping to 
death ! ” 

“ Not while held back by Miriamne ! ” 

“ I ? Poor, weak I, hold you ? ” 

“To me your touch has ever had persuasion and 
might ! Oh, woman, you lead me captive to your will 
in chains riveted, unyielding, and yet of golden de- 
lights.” 

“ Say not so. We have each a great mission, but apart. 

“Apart! The decree that settles our courses that 
way is monstrous. It is’ not of God. He ordained 
that our race go in pairs. And when He set up the 
new kingdom of Jesus, its heralding disciples were sent 
forth two by two. As Moses needed his Hobab, Christ 
his confidants, so need I a yoke-fellow. I’ve no ambi- 
tion to live, much less to work, unless I have my heart’s 
idol with me.” 

“ Illusion.” 

“Call it ^ Maya' if you like; but ^ Maya' Brahm’s 
wife, illusipn, made the universe visible to him. So 
say those ancient mythologians. I can see nothing 
without my Miriamne!” 


The Rose^ Queen of Hearts in the Giant City. 477 

“ Oh, man, hold ; nor pain me further ! I cannot 
help you, How-can I, since my own chosen work 
seems too great for me ! I’m like a mere shell, drifting 
with the tides, without sail or helm ; the harbor un. 
known. I only know I carry a precious pearl, truth, 
and that there are those who need it. I must bear it 
to them.” 

I’m a shell, without helm or sail, and have the same 
pearl. Let me voyage with you.” 

“And — what?” 

“ In all brevity — marry me ! ” 

“ That cannot be, I fear. I’d rather be the . 

Can’t I be your ideal as Mary?” She blundered amid 
her efforts to express herself, and the tell-tale blush 
betokened defeat. 

“Yes; be my Mary, and let me take the place as 
your Joseph. Mary was a wife and mother. The 
greatest of God’s works in the old dispensation was to 
translate men ; in the new dispensation, seeking to sur- 
pass the old. He presented a perfect woman, in her 
highest estate, as the queen of a home ! ” 

The woman was silent for time. There then seemed 
to her to be two Miriamnes, and the debate was trans- 
ferred from being between the young man and herself 
to these two which she seemed to be. One Miriamne 
said “Yield,” one “ Be firm.” One said, “ He has the 
better reasons,” one said “ Nay one said, “ It is pleas- 
ant to be overcome,” the other said Maya, Maya, 
Maya ! ” Then recovering herself she exclaimed, “ I 
wish the priest were here ; he’d guide us by the Divine 
word.” 

“ I have a holy text,” and drawing a line at a ven- 
ture, the youth repeated these words ; 


4yS The Queen of the House of David, 

‘ God said it is not good that man should be alone / ' " 

She smiled and stammered : 

“ Oh, Cornelius ! I want to admire you and lean on 
you as my guide, teacher, pastor; but you meet all my 
approaches that way, transformed to a lover." 

Maya ! Maya! Miriarnne ; let the illusion work ; 
sleep the Leathen sleep ; yield to love’s dream ; then 
comes the full noon to awaken to marriage joy. Thou 
wilt find, not above thee but at thy side, then, the 
teacher, guide ; shepherd as well ; but also the husband." 

Miriarnne had reached a point of hesitancy, which is, 
in all lives, just a step from surrender, and the lover, 
made alert by his ardor, perceived the advantage. 
Though a prey to hopes and fears, an incarnation of 
paradoxes, in which bashfulness contested with au- 
dacity for control of the will, he gathered all his powers 
into a grand charge. With a tender vehemence he 
stormed the citadel of the heart before him. First he 
imprisoned her hand in his; he had done so before. 
Now it fluttered strangely; presently it rested as a 
bird ; at first as if frightened, then helpless, then con- 
tent. All that followed may be easily imagined. Suf- 
fice to say that Cornelius Woelfkin just then believeil 
life worth living and the universe made visible, though 
not by an illusion. 

Just as many another of Eve’s daughters placed as 
she in a tempest of delights, she confessed her capitu- 
lation by a series of retorts, which gave her relief from 
tears by affording apologies for laughter. 

“ No woman ever so loved as I now? You men all 
talk that way at betrothal ! " 

* To death ! ’ Miriarnne, ’twill be true with me." 

Yes, at betrothal and when their wiyes are dead, 


The Rose, Queen of Hearts in the Giant City, 4^9 

they say men are very affectionate. But, Cornelius, 
remember I’ll expect sweets between times. Do not 
love me to death at first, vex me to death later, then 
go mad for love’s sake after I’m gone ! ” 

He vowed, protested and assured ; she believed him 
without the shadow of a doubt. They were irrevocably 
committed to each other now. There was a rush of 
thoughts, plannings, questionings and hopes. Two 
lives apart converging, becoming mysteriously one. 
Over them arose that wondrous sun which illumines 
some betrothal days. They were both very happy, 
very proud, and also each to the other very beautiful. 
The harmless conceits of love possessed them and they 
persuaded themselves easily that they were at the cen- 
ter of all things, even of the infinite love of God. The 
glow of their own hearts brightened to them all things 
immediately about them, and they entered that arcana 
of delights where secret blessings may be experienced 
but can not be depicted. They ate of that hidden 
manna which is reserved alone for those who sincerely 
love and are loved. No being ever loved as they, who 
afterward despised or regretted the enchantment, al- 
though it brought some pain or at the last ended in 
disappointment. None ever having been for a season 
in that Beulah-Land but wishes himself there again. 
None who comprehends the thrillings of lover days 
can fail to envy more or less, if they are loveless, those 
who are in love as these twain were. 

Much of the ridiculing of this grand passion, affected 
by some, is after all the result of envy, secretly long- 
ing for that beyond its reach. Sometimes the enrapt- 
ured themselves attempt this deriding, but theirs is an 
hysterical laughter, a feeble effort to rest from the in- 


480 The Queen of the House of David, 

tensity of their rapture or to hide their secret froni 
others. The laughter of all such as the foregoing is 
hollow and eventually turns the shame back upon the 
ridiculers who would cover others with it ; for love, 
while it is an angel of sunshine, has also the power of 
carrying to every heart which shamefully entreats it 
remorse, humiliation and pains as numberless as 
nameless. 

Cornelius and Miriamne, the young reformers, hav- 
ing embarked fully upon the full, glowing, exalting, 
triumphant tide of their love were themselves reformed 
and transformed. A while ago each was willing to die 
for the world, now each was willing to die, if need be, 
for the other and not for humanity’s sake, unless some 
way the heart’s idol was to be part of the reward of 
that sacrifice. This new tide carried them quicTly to 
that place of paradoxical oscillations, the place where 
the lover is one moment utterly self-denying, the next 
utterly grasping; willing to be annihilated one instant 
in behalf of another, and then in an avariciousness 
without a parallel on earth, the next moment willing 
to annihilate the universe rather than be bereft of the 
one object deemed above all qthers. 

The young lovers passed through the usual, often 
experienced, often depicted, old, old, ever new phases 
of this relation. The fire kindled in their hearts sped 
from center to center of their beings, the laughter of 
secret joy quivered along every nerve of each. Each 
was happier than it was possible to tell, even that other 
one that awakened the joy. Their gait, their blushing 
cheeks, their flashing eyes, and their words proclaimed 
unmistakable the complete coronation of love. They 
believed, and perhaps properly, that they were enjoy- 


The Rose, Queeii of tiearis In the Giant City, 481 

ing the seraphic, exuberant, mellow, yet exciting de- 
lights of an hundred ordinary lives merged into one. 
Each in turn, over and over, in repetitions that tired 
neither to utter nor to hear, said to the other: “ I love 
you.” A rain of impassioned kisses made reply. Time 
was not observed ; they forgot their former hurry, that 
pushed them earnestly, ever toward duty, when they 
were committed to being reformers. They were only 
and completely lovers now, and lovers are beings whose 
existence is in a heaven where there are no clocks. 
The sun set over Bozrah while the twain communed, 
but there was so much light in their hearts they did 
not observe the lull of night around them. Existence 
seemed to them a living fullness, a soaring upward with- 
out friction or effort, and they incarnated that which 
at last makes heaven, perfect desire perfectly satisfied. 
They were presently recalled to the things outside of 
themselves by the sound of some one approaching. 

“ It’s Father Adolphus. I know his step,” remarked 
Miriamne. 

Cornelius, remembering his recent, successful assault, 
was encouraged to attempt another. His heart whis- 
pered to him : “ Why not make this matter final now ? ” 
His heart seemed to grow pale and trembled at its own 
whispering, until he himself grew pale and trembled 
throughout his whole being, at the audacity of the 
thought. But love’s suggestions are ever very domi- 
neering; this one dominated the man instantly, and he 
acted on it. 

“ Miriamne, why not permit Father Adolphus now 
to seal our betrothal with hiS blessing? ” 

“ He will bless us, I know,” quoth the maiden, eva- 
sively ; but she knew what her lover meant full well. 


4^2 The Queen of the House of David, 

Not only so, her heart, against her judgment, was 
siding for the blessing. 

The youth felt certain he had carried one line of de- 
fense, and now went charging onward, determined to 
carry all before him. 

“Yes; he will bless us, I know, if we ask him. Til 
ask him, and then, Miriamne, mine. Til call thee no 
more sister, but wife." 

“ Oh, you are in such a hurry ! This is all too sud- 
den. I — only wanted to be engaged — ^not married, 
perhaps, for years. We could work for the Master — " 

She was interrupted, as victorious lovers usually in- 
terrupt. 

Just then the priest entered. Miriamne tried to 
greet him with a smile and a sentence, but she was un- 
der a spell. She seemed to herself to be a different 
woman than she was when he last met her guide. She 
spoke a few meaningless words, which were lost in the 
vigorous utterance of her companion, as he explained 
the betrothal and requested its ratification. 

The aged man of God looked tenderly down on 
both, and then questioned: 

“ Miriamne, I know his heart toward thee; is thine 
resting on his ? " 

The maiden drooped her eye-lids, but the tell-tale 
blush on her cheek gave answer. 

“ Shall I commit you to each other before God, for- 
ever ! " 

Her hand rose in an effort to restrain, but it fell back 
into her lap, as if unwilling to do so. 

“ Bless us quickly, good father, I pray you," spoke 
Cornelius. 

“ Clasp four hands crossed," said the priest. 


The Rosfy Queen of Hearts in the Giant City. 4S3 

The maiden’s hands joined those of the young man, 
and yet one drew back a little, as if to say. Wait. 
The motion was slight ; then she found voice. 

“ But, Father Adolphus, do you think God will con- 
demn, if we do ? ” 

“ God made such as ye are to love each other. What 
says thy conscience ? Speak frankly now, girl ; thou art 
with those that care for thee with an eternal regard.” 

My conscience does not condemn, and I commit 
all I am to the guidance of you two men. I feel 
quiet and safe in the committal.” 

And the solemn sealing words were soon spoken. 

“Shall I pronounce you husband and wife ?” ques- 
tioned the priest. 

Cornelius, like a knight in full charge desirous of 
taking all before him as trophy, exclaimed quickly, 
confidently : “ Yes, yes, all ! ” 

Then Miriamne recovered herself in the emergency, 
and with maidenly dignity and tenderness, yet with 
unalterable firmness, said : “ Nay.” 

“ But, Miriamne — ” 

The youth could proceed no further. He was de- 
feated by the glance that met his, filled with pious, 
kindly, yet firm dissent. She spoke then freely. 

“ Before God we are affianced ; the first step, as an 
Israelite, I’ve taken. We are now bound to each 
other forever. I am proud to wear the yoke of be- 
trothal. We must wait before the final words are 
spoken, until we’ve seen my parents, and until God 
has given us further wisdom.” 

She prevailed. Shortly after the foregoing, Corne- 
lius, taking a tender farewell, returned to his work at 
Jerusalem. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


THE QUEEN AND THE GRAIL SEEKERS. 

“ My good blade carves the casques of men ; 

My tough lance thrusteth sure, 

My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 

“ Sometimes on lonely mountain meres ; 

I find a magic bark, 

I leap on board, no helmsman steers, 

I float 'till all is dark. 

A gentle sound, an awdul light ! 

Three angels bear the Holy Grail, 

With folded feet, in stoles of v^hite. 

On sleeping wings they sail. 

So pass I hostel, hall and grange ; 

By hedge, and fort, by park and pale. 

All armed I ride, what e’er betide. 

Until I find the Holy Grail. 

—Tennyson. 

“ Moreover certain women of our company amazed us, having 
been early at the tomb.” 

]NOTHER Easter, to some the brightest yet, 

I smiled in Bozrah, and Miriamne was at the 
Christian Chapel. 

J Father Adolphus, after serious, tender 
greeting, questioned : 

“ I wonder thy father came not to-day? ” 

“ Oh, he’s celebrating the resurrection of love, joy. 



^he Queen and the Grail Seekers, 48^ 

and peace, at home. You often told me these were 
the realities of Christ’s rising.” 

“ Thy joy in this must reach all fullness ? ” 

“I don’t know, I’m in a strange way — very happy, 
yet very restless.” 

I have seen souls before at their noon ; hast thou 
not observed how the air seems to tremble sometimes 
at midday? This is not fear but fullness.” 

“ Oh, my shepherd. I’m not at noon yet, only dawn. 
I’ve only begun my work.” 

Has our missionary Cupid other couples at odds to 
reunite?” 

“ Perhaps so ; but whether God calls me to such 
work or not, this much I know. He has put a bur- 
den on me.” 

Will Miriamne confide it to me — or has the lover 
dethroned the priest ? ” 

There now, never say that again ! None on earth 
can dethrone in my heart my constant friend and 
guide; yea under God, my savior! Had there been 
no Father Adolphus there would have been no lover ; 
at least no Christian Cornelius, as my heart’s lord.” 

I fear Miriamne in her generous desire to cheer a 
tired old man flatters.” 

*‘No; not flattery, but just award. As the ancient 
captives on their return to their own. Israel gave their 
wealth to provide crowns for their priests, so do I to- 
day offer the finest gold of my heart to the man who 
piloted me with purity, patience, and wisdom, along 
and over perilous ways, to happiness beyond all words 
to express.” 

The old missionary’s face expressed the wondrous 
comfort he felt in the words of his convert. 


4§6 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ And what is it that burdens thee, daughter? " 

“ I hope my pastor will not be offended, but I’m 
burdened by the slow dawning of religious day. Why 
does it take so long to convert the earth ? ” 

“ The zeal of the young convert fills thee! ” 

“ Ah, but that trite answer, defense of the slow prog- 
ress of true or false creed, after all does not answer. 
I feel those Easter services at times lifting me up, out 
of and beyond myself, out of all thought of my own 
final glory, and to anxiety for a lost Israel, a lost world ! 
I think, at times, I comprehend what was meant by 
the descent to the grave, the captivity of death, the 
triumphal ascent, and then I wonder and doubt.” 

“ Wonder and doubt ? ” 

*‘Yes; I wonder at the grandeur of all that the 
resurrection implies, and seeing it unrealized I doubt 
whether my interpretation of it be the right one. 
Worse than that. I’m pained by darker doubts. For- 
give me, but my poor soul sometimes questions 
whether or not God has grown weary or failed to keep 
His promises. Oh, these doubts pain me to my heart’s 
core, but they will come ! I see day by day on every 
hand such widespread gloom ; not only that very few 
walk in the light, but how many shadows fall on those 
who profess to have entered the light of the Rising?” 

Alas, day drags wearily ! ” slowly responded the 
priest. 

“ Yes ; the centuries since Calvary, filled with misery, 
ignorance, and sin, seem to me to have rebuke in them 
to all who saw, from time to time, the Gospel light, and 
imperious urgency for those who see it now.” 

“ But the church is doing its best to get onward, 
Miriamne,” 


The Queen and the Grail Seekers. 


487 


‘‘That I doubt, though I’d fear to be heretical.” 

“Again, I do not comprehend thee, girl.” 

“That’s it; I do not comprehend myself, or what it 
is that I’m stirred to be or do. I think that there’s 
a reason for sadness at Easter time. It is the re- 
minder of a great hope unfulfilled. Over twelve hun- 
dred years have passed away since Christ arose, typical 
of the rising of mankind by faith to all that was noble 
and blissful, and yet we are all in the dim twilight of 
the morning. Oh, my teacher, it seems to me as if a 
funeral chord went weeping through every Easter 
anthem.” 

The old priest sat silently for a time, then bowed his 
head and wearily sighed ; “ I have done my best any 
way! ” 

“ Oh, do not think I doubt that! No, no; I’d not 
hint a rebuke of my noble guide ; but I can’t make 
you understand me ! Nobody seems to grasp my 
meaning! Yet of this I’m certain, I want to do some- 
thing differing from what has been ; something great, 
revolutionary, for the world, for Christ.” 

“All reforms are revolutionary; all consecration to 
noble work, noble.” 

“I suppose I express myself as vaguely as other 
Christians, whose efforts are chiefly words. But why 
is it that there can not be a presentment of Divine 
truth in such a simple and attractive form as to make 
all hearing and seeing love it? Why is it that the fol- 
lowers of truth separate into armies, not only not 
sympathizing with, but opposing each other? Why do 
not all having a common Father and one Saviour, join 
as one loving family to bear aloft the banner of the 
Jnyincible ? ” 


488 


The Queen of the House of David, 


“ That day will come in God’s good time.” 

“ Oh, again forgive me ; but that trite apology for the 
delayed dawn seems to me to fling the blame on God 
in order to palliate man’s indifference. ” 

“ Miriamne, thou art thoughtful beyond thy years, 
but what wouldst thou have ? ” 

“ Some one to show me how, and when, and where 
to proclaim a revolution ! There is need that Israel 
believe ; that one half the race, its women, be crowned 
with its full privileges and powers; that Christian 
humanity check war, banish poverty and bring in uni- 
versal justice.” 

“ Revolutionist, indeed ; though a blessed one art 
thou!” 

“So Tm often told ; but who will show me how to 
work for such ends ! ” 

“ Hast thou among thy knightly companionships 
heard of the Grail knights?” 

“Tve heard of them; but not a great deal. Why 
ask?” 

“Thou art like them.” 

“ I’m glad to know whom I’m like ; tell me of them 
that I may know myself.” 

“ They, as their life work, and with charming enthu- 
siasm, sought an object pure and noble, but which none 
but they themselves could see.” 

“ Did they obtain their object and do much good ? ” 

“ They were a blessing to the world ; but sometimes, 
like others seeking lofty ends, they failed. Eternity 
alone can estimate their work and worth.” 

“Where are they now? ” 

“Their successors are like thee. That grail guild of 
old is^now no more.” 


The Queen and the Grail Seekers, 489 

“'Tell me all about them and the Grail ! ” 

“ Listen. Joseph of Arimathaea, he that secretly fol- 
lowed the Lord in his lifetime, and openly, after he 
saw the glory of His crucifixion, is said to have caught 
the blood that flowed from the speared side in the pas- 
chal vessel or cup used at the last supper. There is a 
cathedral in Glastonbury, England, which once I saw, 
erected on the place where Joseph builded a little 
wicker oratory, when there as a missionary. At least 
they say he once was there. The aged Joseph died and 
the Grail or Passion cup passed into the custody of other 
holy men. Finally a custodian of it sinned, and there- 
upon it was caught away quickly to heaven. But there 
is a legend that it is brought, from time to time, to 
earth, only to be seen by those that are pure — virgin 
men and women. Then out of the yearnings for the 
cup’s presence (for it is said it gave unutterable joy 
as well as miraculous healings to any that came nigh 
to it), an order of knights sprung up, to seek it, every^ 
where in earth. They were sworn not to disclose their 
mission, and bound, as their only hope of success, 
to keep their hearts noble and pure." 

“ But how am I like a ‘ grail knight ? ’ " 

Miriamne pursues a heavenly cure for human ills, a 
something she cannot see nor quite explain," 

“ ’Tis true and wonderful," 

“The 'grail’ story is almost as old as man, being 
shaped out of other most ancient pilgrim quests. All 
noble hearts yearn for a healer and ideal.” 

“ Perhaps the time has come for a woman crusade, a 
new order of grail seekers?” 

“ Indeed, I think as much ; and Miriamne, taking 
Mary as her model, may be the very one to proclaim it," 


490 The Queen of the House of David. 

But being a woman, and so young, I might be -ridi- 
culed as an enthusiast, as brazen, perhaps, or worse, if 
I attempted such things.” 

“ If thou didst undertake any thing truly good, thou 
wouldst best know its goodness by the bitterness of its 
opposing. The cross is very bright on one side, on the 
other it casts shadows. Walking toward it we walk in 
those chastening shadows. But when weVe passed the 
grave, which it ever guards, there is light, all light — not 
before.” 

“ Sometimes I think Tm a very womanish woman 
and not the stuff of which the heroine can be made.” 

“To be a woman is to have within thee a wealth of 
power. To be queenly is to do in queenly spirit the 
work falling to thy lot. Behold the queenly women 
of the patriarchs ! Rebecca watered the flocks, Rachel 
was a shepherdess. The daughter of Jethro, King of 
Midian, also kept the flocks; and Tamar baked bread. 
The Word of God records these things, methinks, to 
show in what a queenly way a queenly woman may 
perform a seemingly unimportant work. Doing hum- 
ble works well, they had their honor in due time. 
Think of our Mary, Mother of Jesus, after her call, 
serving humbly as a good housewife to a carpenter.” 

“ Oh, if I could only catch the flavor of her life more 
fully ! ” 

“A worthy wish ! Her life was a sermon on faith. 
Called of God to bring forth Immanuel, she accepted 
the trust with joyful humility, leaving the miraculous 
performance to the Promiser. For thirty years, from 
Bethlehem’s cradle to Bethabara, where her Son was 
owned of God, she bore her pains and toils, facing per- 
secutions, the leers and slanderous innuendoes of the 


The Queen and the Grail Seekers, 


491 

rabble, all without faltering. Only wondrous faith 
kept her gentle young heart from breaking! I think 
she carried the cross all along the course of Christ's 
life — until He Himself took it. She wrought out her 
work as a satellite of her son, and yet as a poem most 
eloquent, voicing thoughts without which some of His 
wondrous, greater life would lack explanation.” 

“ I fain would be like her, but then to be so seems 
beyond my capacities.” 

“ If thou canst not be a satellite of the Sun as Mary, 
be a satellite of a satellite. Reflect her, and it will be 
well, since she reflected Him. 'Tis a simple lesson, 
but profitable ; learn it ; there is greatness in little 
things ; regarding them we may at the same time lay 
hold of that that is great. I’d have all women hero- 
ines by teaching them what heroism is.” 

Was Mary learned ? She had to meet some grand 
company?” 

“ Wise, as thou mayst be in the solid culture of 
God’s word.” 

But I can never be a Mary,” presently the maiden 
murmured. 

“ Thou canst be thyself, and what thou canst. A 
seraph could be no more. God needed for his lofty 
purpose but one like the Maiden of Nazareth, and for 
thy comfort remember Mary could not have been the 
mother of Jesus and Miriamne de Griffin of Bozrah 
also. She had her mission, thou thine; it is a judg- 
ment of God to attempt to say that each in her station 
was not and is not placed in the way most excellent.” 
Their converse ended but to be renewed. At fre- 
quent intervals Miriamne advised with her guide 
upon the subject uppermost in her mind, and more and 


492 The Queen of the House of David. 

% 

more became endued with the spirit of the missionary. 
To all questionings within herself, as to how she might 
compass her lofty and philanthropic designs, there came 
but one answer, “To Jerusalem ! ” It seemed to her 
that there, at the heart of Syrian life, she might obtain 
inspiration and wisdom, as well as the widest possible 
opportunity of applying these for others. To her to 
believe was to act, and so she soon had completed all 
her arrangements to join a band of pilgrims passing 
by way of Bozrah toward the great city. The parting 
was painful to mother and daughter, and unlike any 
they had experienced before. The daughter felt a mis- 
giving. Her mother was aged. The tensions of trial 
and responsibility being removed so largely from the 
life of the latter by recent events, left her spiritless. 
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that in the 
days of excitement and conflict she exerted herself 
beyond her ability ; now, when the motive was gone, 
nature proclaimed its premature exhaustion. Miriamne 
was convinced that she would be motherless ere long, 
and was haunted by misgivings as to ever again seeing 
her if she left Bozrah. Rizpah herself, though she 
feared that the present separation and farewell were to 
be final, urged her child tenderly, earnestly, to go for- 
ward as conscience dictated. The parting between 
these two women was secret, they two being alone. 
It was affectionate and most tender, and yet cheered 
by the mutual hope both expressed of an eternal reun- 
ion after death. The eventful day and the supreme 
moment came to find Miriamne and her mother nerved 
for the parting. That was soon over, and the maiden 
moved out of the old stone home toward the white 
camel already caparisoned for her use. Father Adol- 


The Queen and the Grail Seekers, 493 

phus and Sir Charleroy awaited her by its side, having 
repeated, over and over, to the maiden’s chosen attend- 
ant a score of directions, and having in the fussiness of 
nervousness again and again examined bridle and girt 
and hamper. The maiden, glancing after the caravan 
of pilgrims which was to be her convoy, now slowly 
passing out of the city, turned toward her father to say 
the last words of parting. She began : “And now, 
dear father.” Her voice, tremulous to begin with, 
broke down. 

“There, Miriamne,” interrupted the knight, “wait, 
we’ll accompany thee a little distance.” The three 
moved out of the city together, the attendant riding 
on before them. They were all too sorrowful to speak 
cheerfully, so each said nothing. On the crest of a 
hillock the old priest paused ; simultaneously the father 
and daughter did likewise. “ I’m too weary to go 
further,” spoke the priest. Miriamne’s eyes filled 
with tears, and Sir Charleroy, drawing close to the 
maiden, turned his eyes away. He stood in silence 
gazing afar, but at nothing. Each at the last seemed 
to dread to be the first to speak that one word so 
inexpressibly sad when believed to be about to be 
spoken as a last “ farewell.” The silence became 
oppressive, and then Father Adolphus murmured, “ I 
suppose we must bid thee adieu, now.” Sir Charleroy 
shuddered and drew his turban down over his eyes. 

Just then all the child and all the woman in Miri- 
amne’s nature was awakened. Her feelings well nigh 
over-mastered her, and she exclaimed : “ Oh, Bozrah, 

how can I leave thee and thy dear ones ! ” Bozrah to 
her meant home ; for a moment her world seemed cen- 
tred there. The old priest, ever adroit in ministering 


494 Queen of the House of David, 

comfort, sought to divert the thoughts of those about 
him from needless pain, and so shading his eyes looked 
steadily eastward for a few moments. Then he ques- 
tioned : Daughter, canst thou see Salchad, at the 

Crater’s Mouth. I can not see it for my sight faileth ; 
but I know ’tis yonder.” Miriamne followed the 
direction of the priest’s pointing hand, though she 
knew'full well without directing, where the grim fort- 
ress city lay. Habit had made it natural to follow the 
guidance of that old, trembling hand. Some way, it 
helped her; she seemed better to understand what she 
already partly knew, when it directed. 

“Yes, I see it. It is there; changeless and dreary as 
ever. But why this question ? ” 

“ Dost thou observe how the prospect fades away 
south of it, until it reaches the spreading desert?” 

“Yes, I perceive ! ” 

“ Turn to the north, what object is most striking ? ” 

“ Oh, Hermon ! * The old-man mountain ; ’ the sun 

makes its snowy-top appear to-day very like the white 
on an old man’s head and chin.” 

Sir Charleroy’s attention was recalled from his con- 
templation of the pain of parting for an instant, and he 
questioned : 

“ Canst thou see aught of the ruins of the ‘ Temple 
of the Sun,’ said to be at Hermon’s crest?” 

But before an answer could be given to the knight’s 
question. Father Adolphus exclaimed: “Daughter, 
look back again to ruined Salchad ! Beyond its ‘ war 
tower of giants,’ there lies only the desert. Now turn 
thy back on it all forever, without repinings. Leave 
the desert and the war tower of the giants to the wan- 
dering Bedouin.” 


The Queen and the Grail Seekers, 495 

“ And then what ? ” 

“Turn thy face toward Jerusalem, thy back to the 
drear desert — " 

The maiden almost involuntarily complied, and the 
priest continued : 

“ Go forward with Hermon on thy right. Remem- 
ber that the temple of the Fire Worshipers is over- 
turned, its altars cold ; but more remember that on 
Hermon humanity was transfigured in answer to 
prayer.” 

“And so my shepherd and guide would promise me 
blessing and bid me God speed ? ” quoth the maiden. 

“ Thou read’st my heart, daughter.” 

“ The same true heart ; it never gets old or weary of 
cheering.” 

“ Tm made grateful and happy, daughter, by Thy 
words. He that saith, ‘ Let not your hearts be troubled! ’ 
and ‘ comfort ye^ comfort ye my people^ is my leader. 
For cheering, I was called.” 

“ How noble such a call seems to me, now.” 

“Yea ; daughter, if one can not be as the stars that 
fought in their course for Sisera, he may be as a sum- 
merevening’s breeze, in cooling pain’s fevers, and in 
drying the tears from cheeks that blush through the 
rains of weeping times.” 

Gently, firmly she guided her camel from the hillock, 
on which it was feeding, toward the highway, along 
which the caravan was departing. “ We must be going 
now.” 

At her words, Sir Charleroy and the old Sacrist each 
caught one of her hands. 

“ Oh, my fathers ! ” was her pitying but not pitiable 
exclamation. Sir Charleroy, standing on the hillock, 


49^ The Queen of the House of David, 

by the camel, on which his daughter was mounted, 
drew the hand he held close to his heart, then his arm 
tenderly encircled its owner. The maiden’s head 
rested upon the breast that had often borne her since 
babyhood, her lips met in unfeigned tenderness those 
of the man who not only loved her as a daughter, but 
as his good angel, almost savior. It was a scene for 
a painter ; the past and the present, sunset and morn- 
ing; the one looking back in a confessed ineffective- 
ness of a life" nearly spent, in contrast with a fresh, 
young, hopeful life, before which lay a world to be 
conquered. Miriamne, the called leader in a new 
crusade for women, for humanity, was bidding farewell 
to the ruins of giant land, and to a representative of 
the last of the sworded-crusaders. 

Her staff fell on the side of the beast that bore her 
and it moved away quickly after the departing troop. 

The parting was over, and yet the two old men 
silently lingered at the place of the farewell. Once or 
twice the maiden looked back to them, as she was 
borne forward, to wave an adieu. The lone watchers 
followed her with their eyes, until her white camel ap- 
peared but a speck moving along at the skirt of a column 
of dust. The eyes of the watchers dimmed by years, 
now supplemented by tears, presently could discern only 
dust. She was buried from their view forever. Then 
they silently returned to the city, each busy with his 
own thoughts. Thereafter there was a heavy loneliness 
on all hearts in that Bozrah circle. The priest moved 
about his chapel, and the parents about their home as 
though an angel of light had gone from their midst, or 
as if the angel of death had come among them. 

It seems strange like,” said the Sacrist’s sister, “ to 


The Queen and the Grail Seekers. 497 

let a girl go away to that far-off city, among strangers, 
and about such meaningless purposes.” 

Never mind ; never mind, sister, God’s lambs are 
ever safe. Her mission is clear to her, at least, and 
she’ll not be among strangers. The knights who secretly 
abide in the city of God have a charge concerning her 
in letters I’ve sent them. As well, Cornelius, her be- 
trothed, is there. Pure love will be her wall of fire,” 
Thus ended all arguments and misgivings. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE HOSPITALER’S ORATION. 


“ I do not say that a social cyclone is impending ; but the signs 
of the times certainly admonish us that if Christianity is to avert a 
revolution of the most gigantic proportions, and the most ruinous 
results, we have not an hour to lose in assuring the restless masses 
that they have no better friends than are the professed disciples 
of Him whose glory it was to preach the gospel to the poor, and to 
lift up their crushing burdens.” — R ev. Dr. A. J. F. BEHREND’s 
‘ Socialism and Christianity." 

“ My soul doth magnify the Lord. * * * He hath put down 
princes from their thrones, and exalted them of low degree.” — 
Mary. 


HE daughter of Sir Charleroy found a home 
I and a mother with Dorothea Woelfkin, the 
widowed parent of her afhanced. What 
manner of woman the latter wa.s may be 
readily inferred from the character of her beloved and 
only son, Cornelius. It sufficeth to say, mother and 
son were in all things wonderfully alike. 

“ Miriamne, I’ve called to ask, if we get the consent 
of my mother, that you attend a conclave of knights, to 
be secretly held, after Moslem prayers this evening:.” 

“ Where?” 

“ At the house of the Christian sister, aged Phebe ; 
just by the second wall of the city.” 

“ And why do they meet ? ” 

“An eloquent Hospitaler, lately returned from a 




The Hospitaler s Oration, 


499 

long mission, is to address the companions and their 
friends.” 

“A Hospitaler; what’s his name?” 

“ Ah, there it is ; the question all ask, and none can 
answer ! He has given full tokens of his right to con- 
fidence, but declines, for reasons which he says are most 
pious, to reveal himself further than that he is a Knight 
Hospitaler of Rhodes.” 

Rhodes ? Is he very tall, of piercing eyes, his hair 
long and jet, with streaks of gray? ” 

“ Even so.” 

“ My father knew such a man, whom he called ‘ silver- 
tongued.’ ” 

‘‘This man is as eloquent as Apollos.” 

“We met such an one, and were with him for a time. 
We left him here, on our journey from Acre to 
Bozrah.” 

“ Did you penetrate his secret?” 

“I did not, though my father once said to him 
‘ Grail.’ After that he kept aloof from us.” 

“A proof it must be as I’ve suspected ; the Hospitaler 
is one of the new Grail-Knights ! ” exclaimed Cornelius. 

“And he is here? I must hear him again. The 
words he spoke to me in Gethsemane have followed 
me night and day since. He made the journey of Mary 
and Christ, by way of Kedron, to the cross, seem like a 
present reality ; a path typical of the one before 
every child of God. I saw it all then, but have been 
unable since to find it. Oh, I burn with desire to have 
the ‘ silver-tongued' guide me to that pathway again. ” 

At the appointed time the twain sought the house 
of Christian Phebe, and found it wrapped in gloom ; the 
only sign of life without being a man garbed as a camel 


$00 


The Queen of the House of David. 


driver, standing guard at the door. Cornelius whispered 
to Miriamne, “ He’s a knight — the warden.” The young 
man gave the watchman a secret signal ; the latter com- 
municated through a little gated window, with those 
within, and quickly the door swung open, admitting 
Woelfkin and his companion. Within were light and 
cheerfulness contrasting with the gloom without. A 
goodly company was already assembled, chiefly made 
up of Crusaders, but now unharnessed. The faces of 
the pilgrim soldiers betokened a change within. They 
betokened spirits subdued, but not crushed ; hearts hav- 
ing surrendered ambition for devastating conquest, to 
welcome a finer hope. There were few things about 
the place suggestive of war, and many suggestive of 
peace. At one end of the room stood a desk, in shape 
much like an altar. It was draped with a Templar 
banner, and to its side were fastened a sword, bent in 
the shape of a sickle, and two spears forming a cross, 
supporting a cup ; the latter was in form the same as 
the cup of the Passion. 

There is something about this place that recalls the 
chapel of the Palestineans, in London, Cornelius.” 

‘‘Well, you and I were there; now we are here. In 
that the two places have likeness,” pleasantly responded 
the maiden’s escort, 

Miriamne’s eyes wandered from object to object, as 
if seeking proof of her assertion, and her companion 
followed her gaze with a glance about the place, which 
finally rested, as his glances were wont, on the eyes of 
Miriamne. 

“ Oh, the devoutness, the peace, the fellowship ! ” 
she exclaimed. 

Just then there was a movement ; a number of the 


The Hospitaler s Oration. 


501 


men present arose ; a hailing sign, significant to the 
initiated, was given by some, while, simultaneously a 
slight applause passed around the room : 

*‘Tis he,” whispered Miriamne. 

*‘Your Hospitaler?” 

“Yes.” 

The knights all stood and sang in subdued voices, a 
psalm of hope. “ The movement of the melody suggests 
pilgrims climbing a hill.” At least, so the maiden said 
its movement seemed to her. 

When the psalm was finished, the knights resumed 
their seats and the Hospitaler, without preliminary, 
at once addressed them : 

“ Knights of Christ, few and often in hiding, I would 
remind ye that no plan of God is futile, and that His 
cause has no backward movement. 

“ A dream of conquest, restoration and glory came 
over all followers of the cross. The dream had 
within it a hope of a holy land in Christian possession, 
and all the children of earth getting from it the story 
of the true faith. Then there was to come, we be- 
lieved, the golden age, in which all mankind in sweet 
charity’s glorious fellowship should go forward. 

“ Nature, man’s mother, prays in a million mournful 
voices for that golden day ; and God, man’s eternal and 
loving Father, works by countless invincible agencies to 
cause its full dawning. We Crusaders gave our lives 
by thousands for our faith, but we seemed to have done 
little beside change the name of this land from Philis- 
tine to Palestine. One, to be sure, is softer to the ear 
than the other, but to the heart both names bring the 
same miserable thoughts. Yet there was more than 
|;his attained. Ye reniember how pur cayalier soldiers 


502 - The Queen of the House of David, 

expressed their chivalric impulses in honoring that 
queen of women, Our Lady ? Like the rising of sun at 
midnight, came the conviction to Christian Europe 
when at its worst, socially, that reform must begin by 
purifying the homes of the people, by exalting all home 
life. To do this, the mothers who bare and nurture 
the fruits of the home, as well as making them for weal 
or for woe what they are, must needs be exalted by 
right as well as by fitness to their queenship. Every 
knight’s praise of Mary was an avowal of faith ; his 
faith that woman could be, should be, what his imagi- 
nation pictured Mary to have been. 

‘‘ The knightly Christians were among the first to be 
moved by the belief that that was a monstrous blight, 
a heresy toward God and nature which regarded the 
finer sex as necessities or luxuries. Impressed by rev- 
erence for Mary, the banded soldiers of the cross be- 
gan to feel their mission to be not only the recovery of 
the dead, but also of the living from infidel dominion ; 
hence, each Crusade banner came as a sunburst to 
those, who, under the spell of gross passion, were en- 
slaving their natural co-partners. 

“ Men, while the harem ideal stands, while woman is 
impotent because uncrowned, our lofty hopes can not 
bear fruit nor will our labors be ended !” 

The speaker was interrupted by a murmur of ap- 
plause that ran around the circle of auditors. 

Miriamne glowed with delight, and raised her hand 
impressively and nodded toward Cornelius. He only 
saw the motion and easily interpreted it as meaning. 

There, that’s what I felt, but could not express.” 

The speaker continued : “ God said it is not good 
that th^ m^n should be alone ; time that resolves all 


The Hospitaler s OratioHi §03 

fiiystefies, and experience which transmutes to gold all 
the rubbish of guess and experiment, has irrevocably 
declared that man cannot be to his fullness, in a state 
of solitary grandeur. He and the woman go up or 
down together; and, whether a seraph or a serpent 
leads her, the man by inclination or by force is sure to 
follow her footsteps. 

We Crusaders had a glimpse of the truth, but lost it 
to follow an ignis fatuus. Yet, in this land, we con- 
fronted the harem with the home ruled by one queenly 
wife and mother. The world, beholding the contrast 
begins to believe, as never before, in the supremacy, 
over all institutions, of that one where, under Eden’s 
Covenant charters, purity and mother-love mold the 
race in the name of sole and patient love. The Saracens 
paraded their houris, their concubines, and their slaves 
as the proofs of their prowess; but the Christians 
challenged the array by the quality of their possessions, 
commencing with their women of God’s blood royal, 
and ascending to each revered personage, from love’s 
companions, to Mary, to Jesus. He that nobly deals 
with the one by his side will find her putting on a 
glory that will brighten the luster of his kingliness, 
and bringing forth to him those having the power to 
grasp and mold the destinies of coming years. Lis- 
teners, mark me ; there is a lesson profound in the 
record of the strugglings with each other of Rebecca’s 
twins before their birth. Indeed, each being begins 
his career within the life that gives him life. 

Who will say, with assurance, that all of life lies 
within the reach of any man of himself? Nay, be it 
said, rather, that she who first carries, then leads, then 
inspires, as she only can, her sons and daughters, is the 


564 Queen of the House of David. 

one who lays her gentle hands, with resistless power, 
upon the keys of all futures. It is the mother who 
impresses the prophecy of what is to be on the heart 
of the infant, before the event finds place upon the 
deathless page which records deeds done." 

Again applause interrupted. 

The Hospitaler continued, as attention was given 
anew : 

“ That profoundest of ancient teachers, Plato, enun- 
ciated at least a half-truth or truth’s shadow, in his doc- 
trine of the preexistence of souls, though, as our church 
understands it, it pronounces the teaching heretical. 
Be that as it may, this much assuredly is true : if each 
man has not been on earth before, his present existence 
being the repetition of a prior one, his intuitions, vague 
recollections out of a past forgotten in a former death, 
surely there is none who is not the fruit of his parents. 
He is largely what they made him, and of the twain 
that beget, I afifirm that the mother wields the ruling 
influence in the life and character of the begotten. I 
believe men perpetuate their worst traits through their 
posterity, easily and more persistently than do women 
theirs. In the giant of the human pair brawn and mus- 
cle predominate, and these, if depraved, feed every evil 
passion, giving each power to run with virulence from 
sire to son. The woman, formed by finer conceptions 
to be an angel, may fall to sinning and let weakness 
take the place of gentleness. So be it ; yet even then 
her weaknesses and her sinnings, constantly repugnant 
to her nature as God framed it, antagonistic to the re- 
finement that is native, ebb and die along the shores of 
her being’s course. She more naturally and more 
forcefully transmits her good than she does her evil, as 


The Hospitaler' s Oration. 505 

i general rule. They have in fable-lore a tradition that 
the mythical goddess of love, Venus, wore a resplen- 
dent girdle, the sight of which made every beholder 
love the wearer. Let me give present force to the 
legend by affirming that every true woman, girded 
with the virtues that it is her duty and her privilege to 
wear, is an object, among all earthly beings, superla- 
tively, entrancingly beautiful — next after Christ, God’s 
best gift to man.” 

Cornelius now plucked the corner of Miriamne’s 
peptihim. It was a lover’s restless, questioning act. 
Being a man, trained as men, he was naturally inclined 
to doubt the speaker and to join in secret ridicule, that 
substitute for gainsaying when arguments are utterly 
lacking ; but being a lover, he was so far doubtful as to 
his old creeds concerning women, as to be ready to be 
led. Miriamne turned toward her lover with a smile 
lightened by eyes which glowed. Hers was not the 
smile of a girl flatly complacent in an eflort to be very 
agreeable. She believed ; the love she had for the man 
at her side was consecrated first to truth. Her will 
was that of a blade of steel — yielding, serviceable ; but 
still elastic or firm, as need be and as its highest pur- 
poses required. She smiled, but the smile mounting 
to her brightening eyes, left her fine forehead, a very 
temple of thought, all placid. The smile and the 
glance routed all doubts from the young man’s mind. 
She to him was a Venus, and more, a saint. She wore 
the invisible girdle of which the knight had spoken, 
and the youth felt its winning power. Another proof 
that the best advocate of a woman is a woman ; and of 
her worth, the best argument an example. 

. The orator knight proceeded without pause : 


The Queen of the House of David, 


§o6 


“ I know full well that some sneer and carp on wo- 
man’s weakness, having recourse to Eden for argument. 
To these I reply; The enemy assailed not the weaker, 
but the stronger first, and exhibited masterly general- 
ship in seeking to overcome the citadel that would in- 
sure the greatest loss, the most complete victory. And 
note how long and arduous his siege of Eve ; then re- 
member how quickly Adam fell. Crush the woman’s 
heart, ruin her faith, degrade her body, and then, with 
this work completed, we are ready to ring down the 
curtain over the end of the tragedy of a wrecked world. 
When men hold women to their hearts, their manhood 
is enlarged and their queens become their angels, bear- 
ing a ‘ grail ’ that catches for both the choice things of 
heaven. But when a man turns his strength against a 
woman, she ceases to be his charming, alluring help, 
mate. He has brawn, and she, not having that, puts 
on that cunning which is the natural arm of the weaker. 
When the honey-suckle turns to poison-ivy, or the dove 
to a fox, then weep ; but when woman lays aside the 
entrancings of her moral beauty to enter a desperate 
strife with armed cunning, let men go mad over their 
queens become witches. I tell you, hearers, when men 
become demons women will give themselves to sorcery. 
I speak not of spiritual possession, but of human de- 
flowering. Shall our queens be uncrowned, disrobed, 
degraded ? No, no, Satan alone could say ‘yea.’ ” 

When the burst of applause that had interrupted 
him subsided, the Hospitaler continued : 

“ We knights revere the sign of the cross because the 
world’s Savior died thereon ; it will be well for us to 
revere womankind because it was given to woman, not 
to man, to cooperate with God in bringing that Savior 


The Hospitaler s Oration. 


507 


to the world. A woman bore him with crucial pains, 
as each of us was borne, before He bore the cross. 
And reverently I say it, companions, woman’s cross is 
ever set, and all the earth is her Calvary. I can not 
but see, as must you who think, that all this pain to her 
has in God’s great plan some vicarious element, some 
blessing for mankind. We Christians pray for the 
second coming of Jesus, the Jews wait and weep for 
the dawn of a day of salvation, the Mohammedans, 
like hosts of the Pagans, in every clime, are longing 
for some golden day ; better than the present. This 
universal longing is a prophecy of good to come. I 
can not believe that the All-Father would suffer this 
universal and intuitive Jonging to end in disappoint- 
ment and mockery. He is too good for that. By this 
longing I see standing out, less dimly, and yet dimly 
enough to be by many unseen, some sublime, prophetic 
hints. Read sacred Writ. Wherever therein you dis- 
cern a prophetic character, emblem of Christ, fore- 
runner of the golden age, you will find not far from 
him, as his partner and help, fittingly a woman ! 

“ From the first it was so. Adam the first appeared, 
and a woman was his partner, helpmate and more. 
He fell. A way of recovery was provided for him, but 
it was the woman who was given to bring forth the 
One whose heel was to crush the head of the author 
of humanity’s great catastrophe. Then came the 
second Adam — Immanuel. At his advent the chief 
figure, next after God the chief instrument in His 
bringing in, by His side along the years in all helpful 
ministries, a woman, Mary, the beautiful, the perfect, 
the ideal of women. 

Again and again we have puzzled over the records, 


5o8 The Queen of the House of David, 

wondering why Matthew traced the genealogy of Jesus 
along the male line only, through David and Jacob 
to Abraham the father of the faithful, and that Luke 
traced that genealogy through Mary and her father, 
Heli. But there’s method most wise in the records. 
Matthew wrote for the Jews, Luke for the Gentiles, 
The hint is herein given that when the Gentiles are 
fully gathered in, woman will be recognized in the ul- 
timate religion, that knows neither race nor sex. As 
in the royal line which gave man a Savior, as in a 
queenly line having for man, society and home — the 
emblem of heaven expressed on earth — blessing and 
saving powers.” 

The knight closed with an appeal for the continu- 
ance of the revival of the chivalrous spirit toward 
woman, saying: 

‘‘ It matters little what becomes of the dust of the 
pious dead ; the past is secure, and Deity guards till 
the resurrection all tombs in His own unfrustrated 
way, but it matters much how we treat the living ! 
That is a puerile piety which is ready to die to defend 
from foes that can not harm inanimate ashes that 
appeal for no favor, while suffering, willingly, living 
bodies encompassing bleeding hearts, to continue amid 
untold agonies, their whole existence one long appeal 
for succor ! Christian knights, on with your new cru- 
sade, and may the golden age come grandly in, its fruits 
— love, joy, and peace in every clime, to every race, to 
every man, woman, and child ! ” 

The speaker sat down ; there was a moment of deep 
silence, followed by an outburst of approving acclama- 
tions. 

Then ensued a hum of voices, the assembly breaking 


The Hospitaler s Oration. 

iip into little groups, one and another attempting each 
to prove his loyalty, his piety or his good sense to the 
man next to him, by certifying his belief in the knight's 
words. 

Miriamne, half unconscious of her surroundings, ex- 
claimed : 

“ Oh, will not some one tell me how to begin ? " 

“Can I aid my Miriamne ? ” asked her lover. 

“ I don’t know ; perhaps. But that Grail Knight 
with the silver tongue sees, in his soul, what I would 
reach. When he speaks my feet take wings. I can 
not tell you what or how it all is. He speaks and I 
see, as Moses in the mount, the outline of the taber- 
nacle of God that is to be with men.” 


CttAfTER ifjiXIV. 


MEMORIALS AT BOZRAH. 

“ I'm footsore and very weary, 

But I travel to meet a Friend ; 

The way is long and dreary, 

But I know it soon must end. 

He is traveling swiftly as whirlwinds, 

And though I creep slowly on. 

We are drawing nearer and nearer. 

And the journey is» almost done. 

I know He will not fail me. 

So I count every hour a chime. 

Every throb of my heart’s beating 
That tells of the flight of Time. 

I will not fear at His coming. 

Although I must meet Him alone. 

He will look in my eyes so gently 
And take my hand in His own.” 

]N uneventful year passed over the mission- 
I ers, but it was followed quickly by eventful 
times. 

J Two messages came, one after the other, 
and not far apart, to Jerusalem, which moved all the 
Christian colony at the latter place, but especially Cor- 
nelius and his consort. The first was from Father 
Adolphus and as follows : 

“ Your parents. Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, have departed 
Bozrah. They went out together, and their end was peace. 
They compensated themselves for the needless miseries 




Me7norials at Bozrah, 


51I 

they had wrought in their younger days by keeping out of 
all shadows during their journey after their reconciliation 
by the tomb of their children, even until sunset. I could 
not summon you, for they passed away quickly, only a few 
days coming between their goings.” 

Shortly after the foregoing, came the other message, 
and that accidentally, for the link between Jerusalem 
and Bozrah being broken by death, there was none 
left in the Giant City to send after or for comforting to 
the missioners. “Father Adolphus is dead.” That 
was the report brought by chance to the Christians at 
Zion. Hundreds in Jerusalem had heard of him, and 
hearing of his death sighed mildly. The missioners 
were his mourners — really, solely. 

Ere long Dorothea left Jerusalem of Syria for the 
New Jerusalem, and this event not only brought sorrow 
but also perplexity. Miriamne realized that she could 
not now continue in the house of her betrothed, simply 
as his betrothed, even if it were possible for the house- 
hold to continue, the head being absent. Whither 
should she go, orphan and kinless as she was? Love 
protested mightily against any thought of going far 
from her affianced, and then she felt profound pity for 
the man who mourned and felt a mother’s loss deeply, 
as did Cornelius. He entreated for a speedy wedding, 
and she, seeing then no alternative, consented thereto ; 
but as she assumed love’s yoke, she believed that the 
ambition of her life was frustrated. She was not dis- 
consolate, neither was she tearless. She thought she 
discerned the leadings of God and submitted promptly, 
making it thenceforth her duty cheerfully to engage in 
the, to her, seemingly commonplace works of a mis- 
sionary pastor’s wife. Her husband was a “ man of 


5 12 The Queen of the House of David. 

the people,” and found acceptance with the lowly. He 
was wont to call himself “ a priest forever after the 
order of Melchisedec.” Said he anon to his flock : “ Like 
that mysterious man who flits across your sacred his- 
tories am I ! You of the Jews, self-elect, as God’s elect, 
though disgrafted, would put me, intending to do so or 
not, by the unknown and unheralded Melchisedec. 
You think me, without father, without mother, begin- 
ning of days, or end of life, because you do not find 
my name in the chronologies of your high families nor 
myself in the covenants of the Hebrews. You Chris- 
tians doubt my authority because no ghostly ordaining 
hands have been laid upon my head. But I’m the 
child of a King, and a towel, such as my Master wore as 
He ministered, is robing enough for me ! ” Old people, 
women and children, gave the young man unquestion- 
ing love, and thus was well indorsed the choiceness of 
his ministerings. Miriamne beheld these manifesta- 
tions with secret joy, for she knew that through the 
one she loved she was, in part, expressing her own 
thoughts and sympathies. Once wed, she was too 
honest, too tender-hearted, too noble to be less than all 
that wifehood implied, and yet she felt at times as if 
the ambitions and hopes of her life, nursed through 
many years, had not been compassed. She tried to 
settle down and humbly do the work of a missionary’s 
helpmate, and to overcome, through Divine grace, the 
ambition to do seemingly grander things than she was 
doing. Sometimes, smiling through tears, she would 
say to her husband as he sought to satisfy her heart’s 
yearnings with mention of the good work they were 
doing : 

^‘Well, a man has come between me and the ‘grail’ 


Memorials at Bozrah, 


513 

I’m following him, may he follow it, and God guide 
both.” 

After a time Cornelius and Miriamne made a pil- 
grimage to Bozrah, drawn thither by a desire common 
to both to honor their loved ones departed. They 
found the Giant City all pervaded by the spirit of the 
moribund past. Even the Christian church, once a 
light, a joy and a promise of a better day, had fallen 
into decline at Bozrah, The edifice had become di- 
lapidated, the congregation was depleted. 

In name. Father Adolphus had a successor, younger, 
more learned, more eloquent in his way, than the 
saintly man now sleeping. But the infidels, the very 
ones who were wont to confess that they could not, if 
they would, make headway against the old priest’s godly 
life, now laughed to scorn the stately and scholarly 
arguments of the new leader. The converts under the 
new regime were few, the common people did not from t 
him hear the word gladly ; and the regular congrega, 
tion was rent by schisms. 

One chapel service sufficed both Miriamne and Cor- 
nelius. They found in it nothing but cold formality 
and the naemory of what had been, but was now no 
more. 

Qh, Cornelius,” Miriamne cried, reverently I say 
it, but is it not strange that our faith edges its way 
over the world so slowly, with such heralds ? ” 

“ Leastwise, you may say, you do not see your 
♦Grail’ here, Miriamne?” 

“Oh, now, I realize the worth of Von Gombard as I 
never did before.” 

“Are you not sorrowed at his absence, Miriamne?” 

“ Sorrowed ! Truly not ; but unspeakably glad that 


5 14 The Queen of the iTouse of David, 

he walks with the sons of God ; a very king, I know, 
amid the greatest. Oh, how sad I’d be to see the poor, 
dear, tired old man with his overfull heart and trem- 
bling limbs now going about in painful ministries here ! 
God was twice good ; in leaving him so long, then in 
taking him. Ah, if there were more like that old saint, 
those that there are would not need to tarry till their 
twilight.” 

“Shall we prolong our stay?” 

“ No ! I’ve listened long enough to the lull of eter- 
nity here. Bozrah’s past has taught me its all. I’m 
ready to go home.” 

“Home! When, to-morrow?” ardently questioned 
Cornelius, anxious himself to depart the Giant City. 

“ After to-morrow ; the coming day, at my instance, 
the memorial of my parents is to be set up.” 

The following morning, just before sunrise, the hus- 
tband and wife repaired to the tomb of their loved 
ones, to witness, by pre-arrangement, the unveiling of 
a memorial. It consisted of two figures carved from 
whitest marble ; a woman’s form with a face expressive 
of tenderness and beauty, marked with deepest grief, 
but not with hopelessness. Across her lap there lay 
the form of a young man, the rigors of death plainly 
marked on his face and limbs. There was no mistaking 
the representation, and Cornelius quickly exclaimed : 

“ I know the one that sits thus holding that crucified 
body ! ’Tis real ! Impressive ! Awful ! ” 

“ It is fitting, think you ? ” 

“ I’m too much moved to judge, perhaps ; though I 
do wonder that you have not had carved upon the ped- 
estal the names pf your dead, or some explanation.” 

“Names? What matter, to the stranger passing. 


Memorials at Bozrah, 


5tS 

who lie beneath the stone ? As for the meaning, let 
those who come and go question till it appear/' 

I'm the first questioner, Miriamne. The applica- 
tion ? " 

‘‘ Remember that my mother, in her almost solitary 
grief, held her dead children for a time against her bro- 
ken heart, but it was a heart filled with a mother-love 
which never faltered. There is nothing in love sur- 
passing such on earth. Then at last, when her life 
work was done, her cup full, my mother, as her final 
consolation, held to her heart the Son whose death 
gives life, as yon Madonna holds the Christ. " 

‘‘ I bow to Miriamne's judgment ; the creation is 
appropriate; Glorious Madonna! " 

‘‘ I have a hope that it may stand here in the Hauran 
an enduring sermon to the varied races who pass. 
They who come and go here, reminded that the 
Nephalim with all their arrogant might left little but 
their crumbling tombs; that Astarte, once the potent, 
dangerous goddess of the groves, here faded from the 
love of her fevered hosts, who themselves in turn faded 
from the face of the earth, may pause to question what 
the meaning and power of this last, new, fresh present- 
ment ! Perhaps they will hear from those made wise, 
and in time learn to tell one another, that these two 
figures speak of the Deathless Kingdom, its white loves, 
its wondrous rewards and its Spirit of might expressed 
by all who are in it through the power of an end- 
less life, and through the agency of immortal influ- 
ence." 

, Miriamne, I see thee a palpitating angel in the 
flesh ! I can say no more ! " 

As the young missioner thus spoke he stretched out 


5 16 The Queen of the House of David, 

his arms toward the woman he loved as if he would 
restrain her. The motion came from his heart, which 
was anxiously saying within : “ She is growing upward 
and away from her consort.” But he had neither cour- 
age nor words to voice the vague thought which 
brought admiration mixed with fears. 

They turned toward their temporary home in the 
Giant City. As they went, the rising sun flooded the 
marble forms by the graves with a golden light, and 
the twain, beholding the glory of that morning ben- 
ediction, felt an illumining in their hearts that some 
way made heaven seem very near. 

“And now, darling, we’ll return to Jerusalem, and 
quietly pursue our work until we join those loved ones 
gone on before,” spoke the husband the day after the 
monument’s unveiling. 

“ I trust we shall work in future with better plans 
and grander results than we have had before.” 

“Are you discontented with what we accomplish ? ” 

“ No, and yes,” was her measured reply. 

Cornelius turned his eyes full upon her, lifting 
inquiringly his eyebrows. 

She continued: “I’m satisfied, if God so will, to 
blend my work into my husband’s; I know this is my 
duty as a wife, but I long to echo nobler music. Can 
you make it ? ” 

“ Annata, the Assyrian goddess, was content to be 
the echo of her spouse, the mighty Ammon. I’d be 
an Ammon if I could to be worthy being echoed by 
Miriamne. But, little wife, your words sound almost 
Delphic ; and yet you are no such ambiguous oracle. 
Is there any wish unmet? ” 

“ I’ve a misgiving.” 


Memorials at Bozrah, 


517 


“ Why, wife of mine, see how strong you’ve been, 
each year adding health ! See the shadows over our 
people. We are sent to chase these away with Gospel 
truth. WeVe hitherto only learned how to work 
efficiently, and in the future will do braver, greater 
things than ever. We’ll tarry, as Adolphus, ay, and by 
grace renew strength, turning back the dial pointer, as 
with prayer, did Hezekiah of old.” 

ril not go, I know, until my work is done. None 
go before such time.” 

Oh, but we must go together everywhere, even to 
death.” 

Ah, beloved, I know your meaning. It’s the lover, 
not the consecrated missionary, who speaks now.” 

I can’t help it ! I’ll be useless without you. I’m 
useless now, except as you sustain me ; as Abishag, 
the Shunnamite, the fairest young maiden of all Israel, 
brought heart to the bosom of David, old and shaken 
by years, so you put into me all the ambition I have. 
To my trembling heart you are what Deborah was to 
Barak’s.” 

God help you, Cornelius ; I believe you, because I 
know your trusting nature and have joyed in the full- 
ness of your lavish love, but let us bravely face this 
matter as it comes. For God, I know, I must quickly 
do my work and be gone.” 

Oh, say not so, if I’m to be left alone ! That must 
not be ! By your love for me I entreat you to stay ; a 
thousand ties bind my life to thine ; it will kill me by 

inches to have them severed ! 

** Miriamne, my own, nearer to God by far than am I ; 
plead with Him to spare us this agony! ” 

** In spirit, my loyal spouse, we shall ever be near 


5i8 The Queen of the House of David, 

each other, but I feel that in the body we shall not be 

together long. I shall finish my course and then ” 

“ No, not that,'' vehemently exclaimed the husband. 
‘‘Say not that ! I’ll work for you, with you, for God. 
Help me to the end and let me so help you, beloved ! ” 
“You may help me while I tarry.” 

“ I’ll joy to realize the prophet’s vision, who saw the 
hands of a man under the wings of an angel. Here 
are the hands and Miriamne is the angel.” 

“ But your imagination glows, kindled by the torch 
of a human heart almost idolatrous.” 

“ Nay, not idolatrous ; for the fire rises to things 
holy. I only plead that God let me walk with Miri- 
amne; I know she will walk nigh Him. Go where 
you will my feet will bear me thither, undertake 
what you may, my heart and hand will help ; point out 
any goal of darling desire and thither I’ll carry you, 
if need be. For you I’ll gladly die, if, at the dying, I 
have the comforting assurance that soon my other self 
will join me in the overshadowed land of life.” 

“ How it would brighten the world, if all who take 
the holy vows of marriage on their souls were as truly 
wed in heart as we.” As the twain stood by the white 
marble figures at sunrise the next morning, equipped 
for departure, they made a striking picture. The liv- 
ing and the dead ; the exemplars of the purest, deepest 
wedded love committed to serving their fellow man ; 
they rose grandly above the ruins of the place builded 
by those mighty self-seeking devotees of Astarte. 

Bozrah sat in desolation, knowing no hope and hav- 
ing a bitter past only and forever to contemplate ; the 
youthful gospel heralds had all life, rising to new life — 
hope beyond hope, joy beyond joy, and then life, hope 


Memorials at Bozrah. 


519 


and joy in endless unfoldments, stretching way through 
measureless eternities, all before them. Miriamne was 
pensive ; Cornelius was chastened by the remembrance 
of the words she had spoken the day before, and both 
subdued by the presence of the majestic monument be- 
fore them. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE SISTERS OF BETHANY. 

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer, 

No thought her mind admits ; 

But ‘ He was dead and there he sits ! 

And He that brought him back is there ! ' 

“ All subtle thought, all curious fears, 

Borne down by gladness so complete ; 

She bows, she bathes the Savior’s feet 
With costly spikenard and with tears.” 

— Alfred Tennyson. 

“ In the day time He was teaching in the temple, and at night 
He went out and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of 
Olives.” — Luke xxi., 37. 

“ Gethsemane on one side, Bethany on the other . . . where 

He was wont to pray for His people and weep for a sinful world ; 
where His feet stood on the eve of His ascension and where His 
wondering disciples received from white-robed angels the promise 
of His second advent. It will be admitted that above and beyond 
all places in Palestine Olivet witnessed ‘ God manifest in the flesh.’ ” 
— Porter s '^Giants of Bashan,” 

jFTER Jesus had been driven from His na- 
I live Nazareth, He found a home in the house 
of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, in the village 
I of Bethany, on the eastern slope of Olivet. 
That was sweet, memorable Bethany of the Gospels ; 

the perfection of repose,” amid the palm and oak- 




The Sisters of Bethany, 


521 * 


covered slopes of Olivet ; hidden by its quiet life, as 
well as its sequestering mountain, from Jerusalem, 
that great, throbbing heart of Palestine. 

Thither, down the east steps of the Temple, through 
the “ Golden Gate,” along camel paths that wound past 
Gethsemane and across fitful Kedron, the Son of Man 
often went when worn out by His love ministries, 
or harassed by the gainsayings of the great city. So, 
preaching His new kingdom. He exalted its corner- 
stone, the godly home, by electing one such, that of 
Lazarus and his sisters, as a rest and a refuge for Him- 
self. Beyond this He proved His own humanity by 
seeking earthly friendships, at the same time exhibit- 
ing Himself, though the favored of heaven, the object 
of constant angelic regard, as needing, because He was 
human, that which humanity ever needs — congenial 
human fellowships. 

The history of that ancient Bethany family, gathered 
from various sources, but chiefly from the simple and 
touching narrative of the Evangelist John, is full of 
interest. The mother of that home, to us nameless, 
was dead. Yet she was not fameless; that circle of 
children in their several relationships witnessed full well 
of a finest mother-culture, that had been theirs. The 
father of that family was worse than dead ; he was a 
leper, buried alive in the Lazar keeps of the plague, 
stricken, and the husband of Martha, the elder sister, 
early had left his bride widowed. 

That was a circle cut through its center ; but afflic- 
tion had knit together in deepened affection the few 
left. The fatherly brother, Lazarus, well fulfilled his 
double obligation, and wins admiration, as do ever 
those sons and brothers who faithfully take the place 


522 The Queen of the House of David. 

of dead fathers. That he was such a brother, the grief 
of his sisters when he died fully proclaimed. 

With a few fine sentences John depicts those sisters. 
Martha, widowed in life’s morning, but surmounting all 
morbidness by giving herself to motherly ministries in 
her home ; and then was Mary, a clinging, trusting, pious 
maiden ; a poem of faith, a tear-bedewed rose-wreath. 
When Christ joined that circle there was presented the 
finest conceivable ideal of a home. They served and 
He blessed, and though their bereavements could never 
be forgotten, while His banner of love was over them, 
they were able to alleviate the poignancy of their 
griefs through the hope of a blessed resurrection and a 
final, eternal reunion. 

The sacred associations gathering about the village 
of Olivet made it a place peculiarly attractive to Cor- 
nelius and Miriamne ; for they, too, were bereaved ; 
neither in all the world having a single living kinsman 
of whom they knew. 

They determined, shortly after their final farewell to 
Bozrah, to take up their abode at the “ House of Dates,” 
and were unmeasurably delighted in being able to se- 
cure for themselves a house reputed to have been the 
identical one occupied by Christ and His choice friends. 
If it were not the same, there seemed good reason to 
believe it was at least on the site of that ancient sacred 
domicile. 

One day they conversed of their work, their hopes, 
and the needs of their field of labor. 

Tm led to think that we should establish a refuge 
for Magdalenes, Miriamne.” 

If we did attempt the founding of an asylum for 
outcasts we would not belie the memory of a noble 


The Sisters of Bethany, 


523 


woman, who was never a harlot, by applying to it her 
name. But my ‘grail’ does not lead me that way. 
I’d go mad working for the utterly lost only ! No ; no, 
our work must be more radical, by beginning back of 
the falling so as to prevent it.” 

“ Something must be done to educate the women of 
this country to better living and higher conceptions of 
womanhood. We need a school of some kind.” 

“A school ? Good, if it be of the right kind ; but 
there have been schools and schools for men, such as 
they were, and they have effectually proven that educa- 
tion alone is not a savior. Learning does not trans- 
form the soul, else God would have given Moses the 
pattern of a college instead of that of a tabernacle. 
My mother used often to tell me that the devil is 
superbly educated. The more he knows the prouder 
and more dangerous he becomes. I do not despise 
learning, but since it is impotent to transform men, 
why try it as the savior of woman ? She who takes 
counsel less of the intellect than of the conscience and 
affections! We must seek for those we aim to help 
something surpassing in direct efficacy any thing yet 
attempted ; ” so saying, Miriamnd paused. 

“Shall we organize a church, ‘ fair as the moon, clear 
as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?’ ” 

There have beep churches and churches. It would 
be vain for me to attempt to prove to you, a theologian 
and a churchman, that this you call the ‘ Bride of 
Christ ’ is imperfect or lacking in any energy of reform ; 
but, though I heartily confess ’tis the choicest institu- 
tion this side of the stars, yet I see it professing to 
have heavenly charity, abounding light, and measureless 
joys, leaving the needy without hospitals^ the heathen 


524 The Queen of the House of David, 

in ignorance, and most of the world, including many 
churchmen, famishing for happiness. The trouble is, 
it infolds too many wolves and repels too many lambs. 
Your flocks are too much given to atoning for lean liv- 
ing by fat believing; memorizing huge creeds instead of 
incarnating them; putting their faith-confessions into 
themselves rather than themselves into their faith pro- 
fessions. You churchmen shut your ears to friendly 
criticism, sneer at those that censure, and in branding 
such heretics proclaim yourselves infallible. I’d not 
be a vaporing railler, but I hear within your ecclesias- 
tical bodies of warring factions, of ambitious and mul- 
titudinous leaders, a proof that they are of the church 
militant ; though theirs is an internecine militating. 
I doubt if there has existed Christ’s ideal of a church 
since Pentecost. He gave a glimpse of its true out- 
lines there, and it will yet come in its power and splen- 
dor; then, for the paeans ! ” 

‘‘You’d organize, perhaps, a Vestal Band?'' 

“Vestals?” 

“ Yes ; an union of women of pure hearts, committed 
solely to such works as those performed in part by the 
holy sisters of our church fraternities.” 

“ I revere such as are thus engaged with all my heart ; 
but, churchman, you are narrow in your plan ; even 
Pagan Rome, which honored Vesta, the fire goddess, 
by having an altar to her in every community, held 
that the State was a great family, and placed Vesta, 
the goddess of virginal purity, near the Penates, or 
gods of the household and family.” 

“ I see nothing now in this juxtaposition.” 

“ They saw that there was ruin to all society if their 
girls were impure ; hence buried alive a Vestal, if she 


The Sisters of Bethany, 525 

fell from xicr vow of chastity. You have heard, Cor- 
nelius, how good Romans were wont to invoke, often, 
as their family guardians, the manes of their departed 
kin; and this very naturally; they held to the belief 
that the family tie, the finest, strongest known among 
men, outlived, by virtue of its heavenliness, the 
shock of death. Imperial Rome trusted much its 
all-conquering swords, for this life, but for the life 
to come it appealed to Jupiter omnipotent or Mi- 
nerva, the all-wise. No, no, a ^Vestal Society,’ such 
as you imply, would not suffice. I’ve a broader client- 
age and vaster scheme in mind, good churchman hus- 
band--” 

“ Shall I venture another guess?” 

“ It would be needless. Let me explain myself 
fully. Good Father Adolphus, founder of Bozrah’s 
^Balsam Band* which he sometimes called ^nursing 
preachers,’ told me that in olden times there was in this 
country a fraternity of women, banded together to 
perform works of charity. They were remembered 
chiefly for their helpfulness to those that were in direst 
need and utterly friendless. They befriended criminals 
and social outcasts, He said that the women of Jeru- 
salem who followed Christ weeping, were, probably, 
of that fraternity, since it was the custom of that pious 
company to offer their tears for those on the way to 
execution. More, these women were wont to furnish 
the pain-dulling herbs to victims dying eondenaned. 
You remember the Christ was offered such herbs? 
When I remember the spirit that actuated Martha and 
Mary, I readily believe they were members of that 
pious fraternity. More, when I remember how, for 
Jdis own dear sake, they ministered to His hurnan 


526 


The Queen of the House of David, 


wants, there comes to my mind the possibility of a per- 
petual organization, for God’s sake, ministering to 
human want, taking the home as its palace, and to be 
known to the world by the expressive, winning title, 
‘ Sisters of Bethany' ” 

“ Miriamne, if you were not Miriamne, I’d call you 
Gabriel. I’m dazzled by these words. In truth, thy 
^ grair is near, I believe.” 

That I seek to build up I’ve explained, and here in 
Bethany I’ll attempt it. We’ll have a fraternity of wo- 
men, Christ-guided, with burning hearts, and in meth- 
ods simple, direct and catholic, reaching after women.” 

“ Now for our pillow prayer, Miriamne. Then side 
by side, unto wondrous sleep land, side by side in heart 
and being at awakening. 

The sun of the millennium will rise from behind 
the family altar,’ Father Adolphus was wont to say. 
'Twas well said ; redeemed homes are the fruits of the 
restoration. Shall I read to-night?” 

Surely we need the Word to understand the throb- 
bings of our own hearts when our prayers return, 
dove-like, with olive branches from heaven.” 

What shall I read ? ” 

“ What came after Pentecost ! ” 

Then the husband opened to the Gospel Story, and 
remarking the ‘ Ascension,’ read : 

“ He was taken up, after that He through the Holy 
Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles 
whom he had chosen : 

‘‘To whom also He shewed himself alive after His 
passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them 
forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the 
kingdom of God : 


The Sisters of Bethany, 


^27 

When they therefore were come together, they 
asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time re- 
store again the kingdom of Israel? 

** And He said unto them. It is not for you to know 
the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put 
into His own power. 

*'But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be witnesses 
unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Sa- 
maria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. 

*‘And when He had spoken these things, while 
they beheld, He was taken up ; and a cloud received 
Him out of their sight. 

“ And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven 
as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in 
white apparel ; 

Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye 
gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is 
taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like 
manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." 

And His farewell happened at Bethany ? It makes 
our home seem still more like the gate of heaven, when I 
remember this; ‘He’ll come so as He went;’ what if 
that meant His next advent is to be at this very place ? ’’ 

“ Or, what if it meant that He would appear the 
second time, in glory, at the homes of men ; since He 
elected His home for the gateway of His earthly 
exit," replied the husband. Then they sat for a 
little while in a blessed silence ; that kind that falls 
upon souls bowing to a benediction, or moved by 
thoughts that are holy beyond expression. 

The wife broke in on their reverie : “ I wonder how 

His departure affected the disciples ? " 


528 The Queen of the House of David, 

“I have it all here, darling;*’ then he took one of 
his parchments and read : 

“And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He 
lifted up His hands, and blessed them. 

“ And it came to pass, while He blessed them. He was 
parted from them, and carried up into heaven. 

“And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusa- 
lem with great joy: 

“ And were continually in the temple, praising and 
blessing God. 

“And they went forth, and preached everywhere, 
the Lord working with them, and confirming the word 
with signs following." 

“T krew it was as I thought! If believers are as 
they say, enlisted soldiers, under the blood-stained 
banners, our Christ has not been true to His word, or 
there is universal treason in the camp I The world is 
not gospeled and the soldiers have not the miracle 
power. I tell you husband, there is need of a revolu- 
tion, a revival of zeal, an improvement of methods I 
The Hospitaler was right. The Christian world needs 
to be led along the Via Dolorosa after Jesus and Mary, 
up to their measure of utter consecration, to their undy- 
ing love, to their lofty, soul consuming zeal ! " 

And the young gospel herald was silent, for he could 
not gainsay her. 


CHAPTER XXXVL 


THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID. 

“ The harp the monarch minstrel swept, 

The king of men, the loved of heaven. 

* * * * * 

It softened men of iron mold ; 

No ear so dull, no soul so cold 
That felt not, fired not to the tone. 

Till David’s lyre grew mightier than the throne ; 

Since then, though heard on earth no more. 

Devotion, and her daughter, love. 

Still bid the bursting spirit soar, 

To sounds that seem as from above. 

In dreams that day’s broad light can not remove.” 

— Byron. 

“ The king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, 
. . . and caused a seat to be set for the king-mother, and she 

sat at his right hand.” — i Kings, 2, 19. 

IRIAMNE, the heavenly host we imagined 
to be in bivouac about our Bethany home, 
methinks were really present, and gave color 
and form to my dreams. I was in a grail- 
quest all night.” 

“What a golden day is such a night! But tell me 
of the color and form of your visions, Cornelius.” 

“We fell asleep last night conversing of the Ascen- 
sion ; my dreams carried me on to Pentecost.” 

“And what have you brought from the the dream- 



JjO The Queen of the House of David, 

land to help in the stern and pressing waking 
hours? ” 

A panting heart, as one having climbed mountain 
above mountain. I burn to know and feel the whole 
significance of Pentecost ! 

“ I’ve determined to seek holy companionship and 
wise guiding by attendance at the next ‘ Harvest Feast ’ 
at Jerusalem. I think I’ll get peculiar help at the great 
city.” 

The Israelites will not welcome a Christian to their 
feast.” 

“ The one I aim to attend is that that will be observed 
by the Christian knights in an upper room, in the great 
city. They think they have possession of the identical 
apartment in which the disciples of our Lord met and 
witnessed the glories of Pentecost, after the Ascension.” 

“ In Joseph of Arimathaea’s house? ” 

“That is the accepted report. The Hospitaler, 
whom we believe to be a * Grail Knight ’ of to-day, is 
quite earnest in so affirming.” 

“ Wondrous white-souled Arimathaea ! Jewish and 
a priest, yet secretly a disciple of Jesus! I dare to 
liken myself unto that holy man, in a measure. He 
left an old faith for a new one, and followed the cup 
of the Passion, as I, my ideal.” 

good man and a justf says the Testament. 

* * * * * * * 

We meet to-night in Arimathaea’s house,” said the 
Hospitaler to Cornelius, shortly after the arrival and 
welcome of the latter at Jerusalem. 

“Can the uninitiated attend?” questioned Come- ' 
lius. 

“ Now, that’s the joy of it, they can ; and more, we 


The Queen of the House of David, 53 ! 

are to have a number of Jews present, among them 
some once priests; but now like that Joseph of bless- 
ed memory, seeing the true light.’' 

‘‘And the meeting?” 

“ The exalting of the Word, that’s the need of the 
hour, world-wide. I tell thee, young man, set to teach ; 
the needs are not more religions but more religion, not 
more revelators or prophets but surer interpreters. The 
world blooms with truth on every hand ; who will 
pluck the blossoms ? ” 

And the disciples were again, all with one accord, 
in the holy upper chamber. 

The Hospitaler, with an abruptness of John the Bap- 
tist, merely throwing back his, tunic and exposing the 
golden sign of knighthood for a moment to his com- 
panions, as he entered, at once began to address the 
assembly ; 

“ Jews and Gentiles, all children by creation of a 
common Father — greeting ! The fires of Pentecost are 
kindled everywhere in Jerusalem, but they are the old 
fires and cold enough ; sacrifices smoke on the altars, 
but the day of such offerings is past. 

“ Methinks, the offered bulls, goats and lambs, if they 
could speak, would cry out against the priestly hands 
that shed their blood ; ‘ How long, how long the blood 
of our flocks has pointed to the lamb of God, the All- 
Savior, who died to save men from sin and beasts 
from the altar; and yet we die as if our work were not 
finished ! ’ 

“ The beasts join in the wailings of humanity. 

“ For centuries God’s chosen people celebrated this 
feast of the harvest, the joy of Jewry; and now the 
world’s harvest advenes. Yet, for the most part, the 


532 The Queen of the House of David. 

multitudes see not the ripening. For years the first 
fruits were offered, and as yet, the people do not un- 
derstand that first fruits mean chosen, choice fruits, the 
elect of God. 

“ For centuries, Israel offered the shoulder and heart 
of the lamb, and yet Israel waits under the overshadow- 
ing smokes of its burnt offering, not discerning the 
Lamb Priest, whose heart of eternal love and shoulder 
of power, are given for the salvation of the people. 

‘‘ Israelites^ hear me ; out of the altar’s smoke emerges 
to view the kingdom of the house of David, refined, puri- 
fied-— the hope of the future. Ye have thought, hith- 
erto, that David’s kingdom, whatsoever it might have 
been, is, in these ages, to be reckoned with the dynasties 
and forces of an antiquity, whose influences long ago 
ebbed away along the shores of the all-entombing past. 

Yet such conclusion is as fallacious as it is evidently 
superficial. The God who works in unbroken time 
cycles, though men remit their tasks at the beck of sleep 
or death, pushes forth His forceful, faultless projects 
with a tireless consistency that knows no cross pur- 
poses. A real and present kingdom is that with which 
this Pentecost we have to do. We are not, at that 
time when they shall bring out the hones of the kings of 
Judah and spread them before the sun. David’s throne 
is a verity, though long incrusted with neglects ; it is a 
symbol of power in a dynasty that is ordained to over- 
spread the earth. I’d summon my witnesses ; first the 
weeping Jeremiah. ‘ Thus said the Lord : David shall 
never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of 
Israel.’ How bold ! but amid the ruins about us, I cry 
never! never! Now call the God-nourished cap- 
tive Daniel, who, sincere to the last, made all Babylon 


The Queen of the House of David. 533 

l^low with his prayers and his visions. Saith Dan- 
iel : 

“ ‘ The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom 
that shall never be destroyed.’ The dream is cer- 
tain ; the interpretation sure. He was proof against 
the alluring blandishments of his royal captors, and as 
pure to the last as a knight of San Grail.” 

Cornelius saw a light on the Hospitaler’s face, and 
knew it was that that comes from a cortscience clear 
before God. The latter went on with a voice suddenly 
become tenderer than it was before. 

“ Let us hear the reply of the converted pagan king, 
Nebuchadnezzar : Whose kingdom is from generation 
to generation ! ’ 

“ Hearken to Isaiah, to whom the scroll of human his- 
tory through a thousand generations then yet to come 
was present and lucid : ‘ Unto us a child is born . . . 
his name shall be called Wonderful . . The Prince 
of Peace.’ * Of the increase of His government and 
peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David 
to establish it with judgment and with justice from 
henceforth and foreverl Surely he must be of dull 
comprehension who saith this is only the spiritual, 
heavenly kingdom of the glorified. 

Let us stand for a little under the light of the 
blazing tongues of Pentecost, enswathed in imagina- 
tion by the mighty, rushing tide of Spirit manifesta- 
tion, fresh from the Being of the Almighty. Now lis- 
ten to Peter, transfigured and illuminated within and 
without. Error here, with him, was impossible ! Un- 
truth at such a time would be a madness like that of 
the attempted steadying of the ark. Saith Peter : ‘ Da- 
vid bemg a prophet knowing that God had sworn to him 


534 Queen of the House of David, 

that He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.* Pe- 
ter at last, a rock of God, I bless thee ! Call that arch 
angel, who doth excel in strength, his name given him 
in heaven being Gabriel, the ‘ Champion of God/ He 
certified his mission to Mary in terms that can be 
made no finer : ‘ I am Gabriel, that STAND IN THE PRES- 
ENCE OF GOD and sent to show thee glad tidings. 
Thou shalt bring forth a son. And the Lord shall give 
unto Him the throne of His father Davidl Of His,King- 
dom there shall be no end. These are ‘ glad tidings,* 
indeed, sung as such to the joy and wonder of heaven, 
as well as proclaimed as the sovereign comfort of 
earth’s inhabiters. 

“ The splendid, earthly Kingdom outlined so glori- 
ously by the prophets has suffered no syncope, and Da- 
vid’s royal line has not found its end in sepulchral 
palaces. That Kingdom and that line survives ; their 
zenith not yet attained. 

“In that zenith day. Truth shall spring out of the 
earth, and righteousness shall look down fro7n heaven. 

“ So it was settled forever in heaven, for earth and 
to all eternity, that in the vocabulary of divine wisdom, 
^first-born’ means ‘choice-born.’ And he is choice- 
born no matter how ill his beginning, who is reborn by 
the all-uplifting, renewing Spirit of Grace! Jesus, in 
marked manner, even in this respect, parallels David 
in reaffirming in Himself this law of His refined, exalted 
kingdom. The line of the Christ from remotest gener- 
ations is found to have deflected from the line of the 
first born. His descent must be traced through Seth, 
Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, Solomon 
and Nathan, and still others, none of whom were first 
in their advent into the families to which they belonged. 


The Queen of the House of David. 535 

Again, the Christ and his progenitor, David, antagon- 
ized the barbarian tenet of all ages that a man was to 
be honored merely because of his gigantesque figure or 
prowess. In olden times men revered greatly the 
giantly. Among the primitives to be a weakling was 
to be pitiable, and to be huge to monstrosity was to be 
respected, if not actually worshiped. Indeed, pagan- 
ism in its essence is but homage paid to the great, that 
is terrible. The princely David began his career in 
slaying wild beasts and monstrous giants, but we may 
cease admiring the prowess he had physically in greater 
admiration of the symbol that lies in his early exploits. 
He was to be the giant-slayer; evil giants and giant 
evils were to fall before him alike ; and a shepherd’s 
little sling, in pious hands, was shown to be invin- 
cible. ^In Solomon’s time, there was more out- 
ward splendor, but less spirituality than in David’s 
time. The latter witnessed the gilded decline in its 
beginnings. Decay followed swiftly. The world 
sighed for a restoration ; the heathen manufactured 
gods ; the Fire Worshipers followed stars ; in the 
groves, virgins were, after a sort, worshiped, as in 
the forest night-services of the old England of some of 
you, the Druids prayed to a mystical ‘ virgin that was 
to bring forth.’ There was a common yearning for the 
coming of a Champion to lead and defend the races of 
man. The yearning felt its way blindly toward the 
wonder to be, that of a woman of the children of men, 
mothering One all human, all divine, a Prince fit to link 
together the parts of David’s kingdom, whether mili- 
tant here or triumphant above. That full day has 
begun, but is only dimly seen by many. You Jews 
have been wpnt to keep a Pentecost of males onl^^ 


53^ The Queen of the House of David, 

while Egypt deifies a woman as goddess of the harvest. 
One turns to brawn, the other to the bringer forth, and 
neither gets the truth, the royal truth, found in the 
faith that brings forth through all humanity ! 

“Would you see a real Pentecost ? Now, look how 
the first was to the fathers. The holy ones, among 
Christ’s followers, believing His promises, assembled 
at Joseph of Arimathsea’s house, to await it. Hear the 
word : 

“And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of 
the disciples, the number of names together were about 
a hundred and twenty. 

“ These all continued with one accord in prayer and 
supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of 
Jesus, and with his brethren.” 

“ Our holy Luke, said to have been an artist, artistically 
presents the scene. As we read his record, we behold 
the ‘Queen of the House of David,’ the representative 
woman ; as she should be, in the company and honor 
of God’s people. Not there as a beautiful creature to 
be admired ; but there to pray with those who prayed 
for the dawn and the glory. With the genius of an artist, 
and the insight of a prophet, Luke displays his ideal 
thus. The Scripture record closes, leaving the typical 
woman amid God’s people, on her knees, waiting in 
hopefulness for the full dawn ; while for a little time 
over all falls the earnest of the promise in miraculous 
displays from above. There was a rushing of mighty 
sounds, the providences of God in motion, the move- 
ments of His spirits who minister, for a time made 
visible ! The scene was one never to be forgotten, and 
the holy John, years after in the glowing visions of the 
Apocalypse, had brought to his mind its central figure. 


The Queen of the House of David. 537 

the woman clothed with the sun ; the transfigured 
woman, and she as woman in her highest estate ; that 
is mothering a child ! He saw her rising above all 
perils, all evils ; but as she rose, she bore aloft her 
child, a Man Child ! Look at the picture, men and 
brethren, ’till it possesses your souls! BEHOLD THE 
Woman 1 Behold the interlaced symbols ! As a mother 
holds above peril her child, so the peerless woman 
held aloft her Divine Babe ; as the church holds aloft its 
offspring, so also in the apotheosis of the ideal mother, 
comes the uplifting of man’s hopes, and the triumph of 
all that is best, all that is promised. We see to-day, 
but the smoke side of Pentecost, by and by we’ll see, 
as do those in heaven, its fire side.” 

The speaker ceased his address, and all were filled 
with great and moving thoughts. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


THE CORONATION OF THE QUEEN. 

My knowledge is so weak, oh, blissful queen. 

To tell abroad thy mighty worthiness. 

That I the weight of it may not sustain; 

But as a child of twelve months’ old or less 
That laboreth his language to express. 

Even so fare I and therefore pray. 

Guide thou my song which I of thee may say.” 

—Wordsworth. 

JF I could only carry to Bethany what I feel 
I now ! ” ejaculated the young chaplain, as he 
: hurried along from the knights’ celebration 
I of Pentecost, homeward, at the time that the 
were summoned to evening prayers by the 
minaret calls. 

After his greeting, on arriving at his abode, his first 
words were : “ I’ve seen the crowns of fire, and now 
comprehend the meaning of Pentecost, where men 
gathered from varied climes, heard each the spirit’s 
message in his own tongue ! The Spirit is the inter, 
preter ! ” 

“ By what aid came this revelation? ” 

“ God and the Hospitaler.” 

“ We have the first here ; let us call the other, that 
the temple on the hill be made to feel the glow. The 
time is opportune, for each day witnesses new tri- 
umphs of our cause,” 



Moslems 



The Coronation of the Queen. 539 

When the knight arrived a feast was in progress. 
His air awed those to whom he was a stranger, and 
there were not a few who thought within themselves ; 

“ Is he a prophet ? ” 

Abruptly, as usual, he began : 

“ Friends: I would that all hearts here were moved 
by justice to enthrone the Queen whose praise your 
frank youths have been sincerely singing. I am here 
to-day to proclaim her rights, and in so doing I shall 
appeal to that sure word which survives when all else 
fails. She was of David’s royal line ; the noblest one 
of all the earth. To the proof? The Christian Scrip- 
tures, from the hands of Matthew and Luke, present 
her ancestral descent. These apostles wrote as God 
directed, and, after all, only reaffirmed that already set 
forth in the most carefully, religiously guarded records 
of all antiquity, the Jewish genealogical tables. 

You know that the ancient Jews held those tables 
in sacred regard, for on their integrity depended the 
proof of the things to them most dear, as they be- 
lieved. By them every Jew could trace his Abrahamic 
descent, and to Abraham’s seed were all the great 
promises of the covenant. By those tables they 
proved their title to the land of promise, Canaan. 
Every Jew, believing himself one of God’s chosen peo- 
ple, and that his advancement and the advancement of 
his posterity in the Divine favor, depended on the 
purity of the blood of both, felt that he needed the 
guidance of those tables to preserve him from any ad- 
mixture with alien or Gentile blood. The Aaronic 
priesthood was hereditary and the priesthood was in- 
itial in the religious system of the Hebrews. Its legiti- 
macy was preserved chiefly by these hereditary chart- 


540 The Queeri of the House of David, 

ers. Then all true Israelites looked for the coming of 
a Savior, Priest and King to bring to the chosen tran- 
scendent glory, and to win an universal dominion, 
marked by love, joy and peace. Every Jew knew that 
Great One was to spring from the house of David, and 
all within that Judaic line hoping that he or his chil- 
dren might be near akin to the One to come, carefully, 
constantly, proudly guarded and studied these records 
of descent. Birth was the foundation upon which all 
Jewish institutions were founded. ^ So all Israel was 
reckoned by genealogies I They lived in a reign of blooJ, 
and in blood to be Jewishly thoroughbred was, they 
thought, to be most highly favored. They had not yet 
discerned the law of the new dispensation, which de- 
clares all men akin ; a dispensation seeking to build up 
a superior humanity by first of all transforming and 
exalting the inner life. By the revered records of 
these Jewish patriarchs, both holy and love-ladened, 
place the writings of Matthew and Luke, and with con- 
current testimony, unimpeachable as well as conclusive, 
the legitimacy of Jesus the son of Mary is proven! 
He was beyond a cavil of David’s kingly line. There 
were Christ-haters who contested at every point His 
claim of Messiahship. They forged lies freely ; they 
hurled after Him slanders innumerable; they insin- 
uated that He was born in fornication ; they af- 
fected to flee from Him as one having a devil ; they 
denounced Him to Jewish as well as Roman authori- 
ties as a liar, a seducer of men and a traitor. In a 
word, they howled Him down in every way they could, 
unabashed by the splendor of His baptismal indorse- 
ment, unsilenced by the awful warnings of His cross. 
But in their desperation they never dared to challenge 


The Coronation of the Queen, 541 

the records which proved Him ^ the son of David' 
Now had His claims rested upon His relations to His 
earthly father, Joseph, they would have been disprbven. 
All Jewry would have quickly, fiercely proclaimed Him 
a pretender and not in the family of promise. The 
Christ was heir of David’s name and fame because His 
mother was, and so in exalting Him you crown the 
saintly woman who bore Him ! He was the adopted 
son of Joseph, type of all His followers, adopted sons 
of a Royal Father. He was legitimate through his 
mother, type of all his followers, brought into the 
royal family of God by the power of a mystic new 
birth. 

But there is another line running backward, pre- 
served through the centuries to connect the first Adam 
with this last one. This line runs from Christ through 
his mother to Eden. Behold the august truth sus- 
pended by that chain of names ! Names; only names 
of the dead ! names of the forgotten ! Jesus by Mary 
is linked to the chain ! It’s an old, old chain, but yet 
it has gems in its links. Each named is the child of 
another living before, and the history of each is re- 
corded in two words, ‘ begat,’ ‘ died.’ A chain of dust ! 
One man precedes another. Each in turn vanishes 
until immortality is confronted in the last sentence : 
^ Adam, who was the son of God!' The first mortal 
son of God uncrowned and led away from his kingdom, 
by a woman, to death ! The twain go down together, 
each ruinous to the other, with nothing left them but 
a hope ; and that hope rested upon a to them mys- 
terious promise : ‘ The seed of the woman shall crtish the 
head of the serpejit!' It would have staggered their 
faith had one told them that in God’s revenges, all 


542 The Queen of the House of David, 

compensating, all healing, she that led down was of 
the sex that should lead upward. Out of their dark- 
ness there came a seeming dawn, and Eve cried ec- 
statically at the birth of Cain : 

“ ‘ I have gotten a man from the Lord ! * 

They thought he was a token of renewed favor 
and probably the redeemer from the curse. Returned 
out a murderer, and introduced them to the supreme 
horror of humanity — death. The conflict of light and 
darkness went on, and the first pair tasted death them- 
selves, looking along the horizon of unrealized hopes 
to the last and waiting, as all their posterity through 
painful centuries waited, for the Man that was to save. 
The long years with leaden tread marched on, strug- 
gles amid suffering weighty and countless, accompanied 
the race ; of them all woman bore the heavier part, but 
she kept somehow the larger hope. Each J ewish mother, 
with a pride of sex secretly cherished, watched and 
longed for the coming from herself of the ONE who was 
to lift her up and crown her queen, indeed. 

‘‘God at last gathered all woman’s trustful hopings 
into one great answered prayer, and deigning, in sov- 
ereign love. His marvelous co-operation, brought forth 
another and a perfect Adam. 

“ We are informed that Joseph and Mary went, about 
the time of Jesus’ birth, in compliance with Roman 
law, to Bethlehem to pay their personal taxes. The 
Roman tax lists were based upon the records of fam- 
ily descent so far as concerned the Jews. 

“ To make the collection certain beyond the possibil- 
ity of any one’s escape, the law required each taxable 
subject to pay his allotted tribute in the city of his 
nativity, The father and mother of Jesus were cited 


The Coronation of the Queen, 543 

to the city of David. Thither they went. And so in 
the providence of God it happened that pagan Rome 
was summoned to the cradle of the infant Savior and 
made unwittingly an attester to all time that He was 
of a family by right recorded among those descended 
from great David. 

“ The son and the mother here stand or fall together. 
If Mary was not of David’s line, then the Son she bore 
was not, and He is left without proof of being of the 
seed of David. 

Joseph was not the father of the Christ after the 
flesh. The lives of mother and son are eternally inter- 
twined. If we honor one we must needs honor the 
other ; abating the fame of one we degrade the other. 

“ Jesus’ claims to being the Messiah depended upon 
the fact that His mother was of the tribe and family 
royal. The absolute requirements of prophecy can 
only be met in the Messiah by His being of the House 
of David. Jesus himself admitted and fairly met this 
necessity. So he questioned the Pharisees : ‘ What 
think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?’ ^ They say 
unto him, the Son of David.’ Admitting this, the 
Savior propounded the question involving sonship 
and spiritual unity with God which His questioners 
could not answer: 

‘‘‘ If David then call him Lord, how is he son? ’ 
Neither durst any ma 7 t from that day forth ask 
Him any more questions! 

HadHedenied the necessity of Davidic origin they 
could have overwhelmedHimwith Scriptures. Had he 
not been of that family the most ignorant Jew would 
have promptly rejected His claims tP being the Hope 
of Israel. 


544 Queen of the House of David, 

** Peter the apostle, amid the soul-trying solemnities 
of Pentecost, speaking to the representatives of peo- 
ple from all parts of the earth and for all time, cried : 

* Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you con- 
cerning the Patriarch David : Being a prophet, and 
knowing God had sworn with an oath to him that of 
the fruit of his loins, according to the fleshy he would 
raise up Christ to sit on his throne.’ 

“ This orator spoke then with the accuracy of one in 
the presence of the Holy Ghost, and not only made 
sincere, but illuminated, by the torch of God. This 
is conclusive, but the reiteratives of the inspired 
writers justify us in presenting their cumulative' 
evidence. 

After Peter comes the learned Hebrew of the He- 
brews, Paul ; before his conversion to Christianity de- 
claring himself to have been ' afte rthe most straight- 
est sect a Pharisee ; ’ after that conversion, rejoicing 
to the end of life, as of the true, new Israel by faith in 
Him that makest all new. ‘ 

“Twice Paul met Mary’s son mysteriously, face to 
face, within the very confines of Glory. Let Paul 
speak: ‘Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, separated 
unto the gospel of God, concerning His Son, our Lord, 
which was made of the seed of David according to the 
flesh ! ’ 

“ Let us not longer make a mock of eternal, holy veri- 
ties ! Christ was of David’s flesh through His mother, 
and born to be a real king of a real kingdom, not a 
phantom kingdom ! That kingdom must come; yea, 
blessed be Jehovah ! it is coming. 

“ Joseph, the putative father of Jesus, adopted Jesus 
as his son, but he could not, by that legal act, make 


The Coronation of the Queen, 


545 


his foster son, whose father was the Holy Spirit of the 
seed of David, the flesh! Jesus received, then, 

His royal blood from Mary, and bore His Kingly title 
after the flesh as ‘ the crown wherewith his mother 
crowned Him! Revelations harmonize ; Luke and 
Matthew must therefore agree with Paul and Peter. 

The tables of Luke and Matthew agree down to 
David’s time, but then they diverge, until they are 
converged in Jesus, through the undoubted legitimacy 
of Mary as a descendant of David and the adoption of 
Jesus by Joseph, a scion of another branch of the same 
great family. Luke gives a sentence, all luminous, 
but first puzzling : flesus himself began to he about thirty 
years of age^ being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, 
which was the son of Heli! ‘Ah, as was supposed ! ’ 
sneers the infidel. ‘As was supposed! SUPPOSED!!’ 
hatefully shouts some insinuating, ignorant Jews ! But 
now let us fill out, naturally, Luke’s statement, ‘as 
was supposed, the son of Joseph, but in reality the son 
of Heli.’ But here it may be asked, was Jesus the son 
of Heli? It is, I answer, not infrequently in the Scrip- 
tures that a grandson is called a son. Jesus was prob- 
ably the grandson of Heli. It was a common custom 
of the Jews, except in cases of especial necessity, not 
to record the names of women in tracing lines of de- 
scent. Men kept the books, and it had become a habit 
with the lords of creation to thrust woman into the 
background. Mary was too insignificant a person, 
socially considered, in her time, to be registered in her 
own name in the hereditary charters. Joseph was put 
in her stead, as her representative. There was not any 
supposition about the descent of Mary, but these 
scribes, who had charge of the books, thought it were 


54^ The Queen of the House of David, 

more creditable to the male sex to record Joseph as the 
father of Jesus, and, by a little fiction, suppose him to 
have descended through the former from Heli, than to 
say Mary descended from Heli and Jesus descended 
from Mary. The Romans encouraged this, and also the 
politicians. Men were the only ones to fight or pay 
taxes, and, as political factors, were strictly watched by 
those in authority. Luke, in reality, gives Mary’s line. 
He was scholarly and accurate, besides that a physi- 
cian, and we judge by all experience that there is that 
in the profession of medicine which makes its followers 
tender toward all suffering, consequently especially 
tender to women, the largest inheritors of the pains 
that beset our race. Doctor Luke, like those of his 
fraternity, by an act of graceful justice, in the spirit 
of Christianity which is essentially humane, just, and 
courtly, accorded gladly the woman her place. But the 
^ doomsday books' o{ the Jews, containing their family 
trees or genealogies, perished with the perishing of the 
Jewish nation. Those records had done their work; 
it was time for them to go. They had become by misuse 
agencies of evil. They stood long enough to demon- 
srrate that God works through cycles vastly wide, and 
that His definite promise made to Adam, Abraham and 
many of their successors, had finally been fulfilled, at 
the end of thousands of years, with a miraculous ex- 
plicitness. The records disappeared after Christ came, 
and herein was a providence saying to the watchers : 
‘ He is come. No need further of the patents of His 
ancestry to aid your watching.’ More than that, they 
being gone, no other could arise claiming to be Shiloh, 
with hope of convincing any by appeal to proof from 
the records of ancestry. 

Shiloh and his white kingdom have come. It is 


The Coronation of the Queen. 


547 


ruling the earth ; not in memories of its mighty dead, 
but by its regal, potent virtues and charities. The 
battering rams of Titus destroyed wall and Holy Tem- 
ple, but thus was let in new dawn. Above the storm 
of that awful conflict the spiritual may discern in living 
letters the mightly words of God which dispelled dis- 
ordering darkness from the universe at the beginning : 
^ Let there be lights" and, indeed, ‘light was.’ The 
obliterated records of Jewish ancestral lines, on which 
alone many a worthless child of Abraham based his 
claims to superiority, his right to despise and neglect 
his fellow men, his justification to tyrannize, and finally 
his hope of favor with God, ceased to present their 
sturdy barriers to the entering in of a better hope. 
Then came in the beginning of this new era ; now the 
patent of nobility is noble character ; this is the time 
to be marked by an universal recognition of universal 
brotherhood in a kingdom where there is neither Jew 
nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female. A king- 
dom where righteousness, impartial justice, liberty, 
equality, purity and humanity are to be the regnant 
potencies. In this kingdom, how fittingly, Christ 
stands as the king and ideal of man, and how fittingly 
his mother supplements his sway by being presented 
herself to all womankind as a queenly ideal. Let him 
or her dispute her title, who can surely say the earth, 
in this redemption period, needs no such sublime epit- 
ome of womanly virtue and worthfulness. 

“ My words are ended for to-day, assembled men and 
women. Some of these things spoken may seem like 
deep sayings, but I leave them to find their lodgment 
in your hearts and minds. I trust them, knowing that 
Truth has a sword which cuts her way, each sweep of 
that sword making light.” 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 


THE -LIGHT OF THE HAREM" IN -THE TEMPLE OF 
ALLEGORY." 

- Would I had fallen upon those happier days, 

And those Arcadian scenes . . , 

Vain wish ! Those days were never ! airy dreams 
Sat for the picture, and the poet’s hand 
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth. 

Grant it ; I still must envy them an age 
That favored such a dream ; in days like these 
Impossible when virtue is so scarce. 

That to suppose a scene where she presides 
Is tramontane, and stumbles all belief.” 

— Young, 

- The glory of the Lord came from the way of the east, 
and the earth shined with His glory. Thou son of man show the 
house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their in- 
iquities, and let them measure the pattern.” — Ezekiel, xliii, 

Cornelius once said I might expend the 
fortune coming from my grandfather, Har^ 
rimai, as I chose.” 

‘‘Why, that’s so without my saying. I 
did not court your grandfather, nor his ownings, and 
have gotten affluence beyond the wildest dreams of a 
lover in Miriamne’s. self.” 

“ I think the old church on the hill is smiling day by 
day, more and more.” 

^‘I’ye noted the improvernent, and it assures me our 



The Light of the Haremi 


549 


hearers are growing. A meanly kept sanctuary, wit- 
nesses of starved worshipers. Some churches might be 
called stables for albdevouring, nothing-giving, lean 
kine.” 

“ I’d like to be brought to confession ; question me ! " 

“ Question ? I can not doubt either Miriamne or her 
doings; to question, one must doubt.” 

“Sir Courtly! But I’ll flank your courtesy; I’ve 
purchased and furbished up the old ecclesiastical pile.” 

“ I might have guessed it was Miriamne’s work ! 
Now, good Bishop of Bethany, appoint me Rector.” 

“Churchman forever! We’ll have no Rector.” 

“No Rector? No sermons? No congregation ? ” 

“ We’ll have a multitude, if we can get into the place 
the God-shine ; that brightens and draws ever.” 

“Allurement by light! A new device. Are we to 
have a tryst where lotus-dreamers may take sun-baths?” 

“ Curiosity, too proud to question directly, travels 
around with banterings.” 

“Incisive ^Miriamne, my aegis, thin as paper, is 
shredded ; I confess ! ” 

“ Confession compels pardon and counsel. I’ll give 
both. The restored sanctuary is to be the capitol of 
our fraternity, the 'Sisters of Bethany' ” 

“Capitol? Are you inviting the Sultan to take your 
homes and your heads ? A capitol sounds like politics, 
revolution and things governmental.” 

“ There is to be war and a revolution ; our munitions 
are to be solely moral agencies ; our aim, to revolve the 
world around toward Paradisiacal days. I’d have part- 
ing streams flow out from Bethany to water the earth, 
and sing anew the jubilant strains of Pison, Gihon, 
Hiddekel and Euphrates.” 


550 The Queen of the House of David, 

“Arcadia! Alas, how sad such dreams, because so 
impossible to realize. The Arcadians, so charming in 
the poet’s pictures, were, in fact, very warlike, very 
loutish, very human.” 

“ Say not that what has been must always be. Moses, 
at a time when Israel was at its lowest dip, received of 
God a pattern of the Tabernacle. The God of Moses 
is unchangeable. I’ve gotten from Him a pattern, also.” 

“ And now I question, as you wish 1 ” 

“The old sanctuary is to be a ‘ Temple of Allegory,' 
We shall attempt therein to picture the finest truths by 
symbols that shall make them tangible and irresistible.” 

“A splendid ambition! Possess me of your intrica- 
cies of canon and catechism. I’d accept them.” 

“You overlook our simplicity by expecting com- 
plexity. We shall not walk like ghosts, hampered by 
the grave-clothes of the dead, though august forms. 
Seven words, enough for each day of the round week, 
are our whole profession ; ‘ Humanity toward humanity, 
with godliness toward God! ” 

As they conversed, they walked toward the old sanc- 
tuary at the suburbs of Bethany, and now were draw- 
ing near it. 

“ Behold, Miriamne, the Hospitaler; yonder.” 

“ Yes, I’ve called the knights hither ; the Hospitaler 
will dedicate our temple to-day.” 

“ But has he ecclesiastical authority so to do ?” 

“The same authority that these growing shrubs and 
vines have to make the place beautiful. See, I’ve 
pierced the walls of the grim pile, wherever I could, to 
make a window. The Hospitaler is to take them fora 
theme.” 

“Windows for themos?” 


The Light of the Harem f 5^1 

“ He is able ; and understands by them that we’d 
have let into musty beliefs floods of sweet light.” 

“ The knights are singing ! ” 

“Yes, the Grail song, ‘ Faint though pursuing'^ the 
dedication has commenced.” 

The words sung recited the grail quest ; but its 
chorus, a simple one, was much the same as that sung 
at the May-day festivities on a former occasion. The 
people gathered, heartily joined in the chorus. When 
the singing ceased, the Knight, in his usual abrupt 
manner, began addressing the assembly: 

“ The beloved young missioners have undertaken, by 
means of their handiwork here, to strikingly present the 
noblest truths, and they have taken a step in the right direc- 
tion. Love for the pictorial, manifest especially in children, 
grows with growth; those adult needing and seeking, as 
they grow, finer, grander symbols. Our Divine Lord, who 
‘ knew men ' and ‘ knew what was in man,’ did not rebuke, but 
rather utilized this taste of man, by teaching the profound- 
est things of His Kingdom by means of it. He came as 
close as close could be to the very core of human life, as it 
was or to all time will be. While He might have navigated 
Galilee in a palatial barge, borne over be-flowered waves by 
perfumed breezes and golden wings, with the aureoled 
spirits, ‘ who do excel in strength^' by thousands, to escort 
Him, He chose rather to journey in an all-winning humility, 
borrowing, as He had need, the old boat of some poor 
Tiberian fisherman. He might have entered Jerusalem, 
that last time, in an Elijah-like chariot, dazzling the city 
with splendors surpassing those that the rapt John beheld 
on Patmos ; but the King of Glory, seeking to be the King of 
all men, elected in that supreme moment to get near to 
men by approaching the august courts of Herod and Caiphas, 
and the commons as well, on an ass — an humble beast, and 
borrowed at that. All this allegorized the condescension 
and sympathy of Jehovah. The universe is full of patterns ! 
The books of Nature, Revelation, and Providence, having a 
common authority, are constant in the use of pictured 
truth. Nature gives us the dawning of light and the mar- 


55 ^ The Queen of the House of David, 

shaling of order out of darkness and chaos. There is the 
low earth, the high firmament, ripe summer going down into 
the winding sheets of winter and up to the resurrections 
of spring. Twig, flower, seed, forest ; insect that creeps, 
and bird that flies ; the speck-life moved, and the behe- 
moth ; the atom and the planet-system — waning and 
growing, dying and living, from formlessness to beauty, from 
time to eternity! Then take the inspired picture-history: 
Eden’s fall, Egyptian captivity, the Red Sea passage, the 
wilderness, the manna by the way, the rest by the Mount of 
the Law, the entrance to the Promised Land. Lastly, the 
Incarnate One, an eternal symbol, the realization and fulfill- 
ment of all preceding. ‘ Which things are an allegory,’ ex- 
claimed Paul, with a sweeping back-look. The three books 
present to the thoughtful pictured banners innumerable, to 
wave him onward. This temple is dedicated to the purpose 
of pointing to these pictures. Fitly the ‘ angels of the 
mount * have determined to make prominent the beautiful, 
patient, modest Mary, Mother of Jesus. And to study her 
intelligently or profitably, it is necessary to know her not only 
as an historical personage, but as one in the cavalcade of 
symbolism unfolded by Sacred Writ and by Nature. She 
passes by, herself every way unique, the exemplar of God to 
those aspiring after gentle, devout girlhood, pure and wise 
maiden-life, constant wifehood, and patient, consecrated, 
and influential motherhood. Turn again to the Divine 
Word, the beacon of the ages, the history of Provi- 
dence, the solver of life’s problems. It is made up of 
an entrancing array of symbols, types, prophetic dramas, 
and gorgeously constructed visions, constantly representing 
or dextrously pointing, by countless trophies and alle- 
gories, to its Ideal and Darling, Mary’s Son, who ‘ spoke as 
man never spake^yet who without a parable spake nothing* 
Though the literary ages are strewn with long winrows of 
dead books, no work of man long surviving the mutations 
of time, God’s picturesque handiwork, the inspired volume, 
as potently molds the thoughts, charms the affections and 
quickens the hopes of our race with its tokens, types, idyls 
and illustration as it did when the earth was younger by far 
than it is now. It is a living fountain, not only giving, but 
retaining its immortality ! It abides because it masterfully 
deals with the things that pertain to the wonderland of the 


The Light of the HdrentT 553 

soul. How necessary its methods is at once apparent to 
any one who considers, discerningly, man as a complex union 
of spirit and matter; wonderful forever, but '"very good,' 
since the All Holy, Great High Priest performed the nuptial 
ceremony of that union. If there could be found a being 
able to reason, as a man, who had not within himself this 
unity, and who had never experienced its phenomena, such 
would at once combat the possibility of its existence. Even 
those so organized, and momentarily realizing the jointure 
of the God-like spirit with the earthly body, the higher con- 
descending to and communing with the inferior, the inferior 
at times over-persuading, dominating and utterly ship- 
wrecking its great spiritual co-partner, are compelled to 
admit the whole as being a fact without parallel, alike in- 
scrutable and bewildering. A life-time of profoundest in- 
trospection can carry the greatest mind, herein, only to the 
confines of new wonders. But the interest in the study of 
the unwritten, unvoiced language of symbolisms by which 
the wonderfully united twain, soul and body, confer and 
commune with each other deepens with the study. What a 
fine, expressive, rapid, exact, exalted language that must 
be ! To each well understood ; without their arcana un- 
known, unheard, incomprehensible. And it is of necessity 
all symbol, natural, intuitive, without a single arbitrary sign ! 
This sign-language acts by symbol in the royal temple of 
memory and imagination. And so again we perceive the 
representative, picturesque or typical is the medium of the 
fine, the deep and the lofty in expressing truth. This is the 
soul’s language, by which it communes with whatever else 
there is in man, through which it receives the songs of 
Heaven, and the august or tender messages of the Spirit, out 
of the deathless land. 

“ When this sphere of ours was rolling swiftly onward 
through the shadows of night, as well as swiftly downward 
through darker shadows of sin. Divine love said ‘ Let there be 
light.’ Then the hosts of heaven saw at Bethlehem a 
mother and babe marking the place of world-dawn, unfold- 
ing the design of Deity to effect redemption by touching the 
race of man at infancy ; the most effective because the most 
plastic point ; through motherhood the most influential be- 
cause the tenderest instrumentality. The never-to-be-for- 
gotten spectacle thrilled, with a new ecstasy, the beings of 


554 Queen of the Mouse of David, 

glory whose every throb of life is joy. They tracked the 
heavens about with light as they sped out to keep abreast 
the fleeing earth and shout over Bethlehem, ‘ Glad tidings ! 
Glad tidings ! ’ They saw Eden restored through the advent 
of a new, pure home ; they saw a mystic covenant between 
God and man typified in the child begotten of a human 
mother in conjunction with the Eternal Father. By this there 
seemed to be an attesting that humanity was to be raised to 
Divine favor ; there also was a symbol showing the value of 
law; for through the incarnation. Deity, in the form of a babe, 
became submissive to law administered by a mortal mother. 

“ He is blind who can not see in all these things God’s pur- 
pose to elect some of His creatures to be His co- laborers in 
the choicest co-operations, and also to be exemplars of what 
He does and would do. These things being so, we do well 
to learn the alphabet of His goodness from His elect heroes, 
heroines and saints ; and I proclaim to-day my innermost 
belief in Christ as the argument, logic and fruit of God’s 
love ; but, at the same time, I praise, as one enravished, 
the character of her who was God’s poem, God’s perora- 
tion ! We now proclaim this temple dedicated to the pur- 
poses of showing forth the things I have spoken.” 

The Hospitaler abruptly ceased his address, as he be- 
gan it. There were other services consisting of psalm- 
singing and prayers, and the service was ended. 

As the congregation dispersed, the young missioner, 
Cornelius, exclaimed : “ Miriamne, the Hospitaler has 
awakened me as from sleep by God’s truth. Oh, the 
heavens are not as full of shining stars as God’s truth 
is full of beauty ‘ It seems strange that men like my- 
self, and wiser, are so long in bringing these things to 
their minds. You, my dear little mystic, are my inter- 
preter. 

“It’s just as I told you, wife. We must go in pairs. 
In the Egyptian mythologies, Osiris had his Isis, 
Amen-Ra his Maut, and Kneph his Sate. Thank 
God I have my adolescent other self ! ” 


The ‘‘ Light of the HaremT 


555 


“ I, a woman, help you ? My sex is honored by the 
praise. Are they worthy of all they need ? Is it 
madness to seek to gather all women having gifts and 
needs into a helped and helping fraternity whose creed 
is a fine example? If I help Cornelius, cannot a peer- 
less one like Mary help all ? ” 

“ Pardon the thought, but one word haunts me — 
idolatry ! ” 

“ Impossible ! We all need soul company, and have 
room within for such. We must have an inner popu- 
lation of real heroines and heroes or be filled with 
ghosts 'and myths. The empty , soul, eaten up with 
self-worship, goes mad ; the myth-possessed becomes 
an idolater. If we harbor the God-like, keeping the 
highest place for Deity, our inner selves will be no 
hideous chambers of imagery, but a counterpart of 
heaven.” 

“ But some have fallen into putting Mary before 
Jesus, and so we’ve seen the advent of Mariolatry.” 

“ But this only, and surely, here I know, no friend of 
the Divine Son can dethrone Him by honoring her, 
aright ; indeed, as He, Himself, did. It was of Him 
she spoke when exclaiming: ^ My soul doth rejoice in 
God my Savior !' Can one truly honor Him and 
despise and ignore the woman who gave Him human 
birth ? Can one have His mind and forget her for 
whom love was uppermost to Him in His supreme last 
hours? Can one honor her aright, and yet dethrone 
the Son whom she enthroned? She bore Him, then 
lived for Him. She honored herself in bearing Him, 
and was His mother. His teacher and His disciple. 
He revered her, she worshiped Him. Awed by His 
augustness, she was yet conscious of an ownership of 


j56 


The Queen of the House of David, 


His greatness; believing in His divinity, she yet en- 
joyed the nearness to Him of a mother. 

“ I can not but believe that she is a queen, indeed, 
high among the glorified who reign with God ! I ques- 
tion again : Who ever did, or could, become heretic or 
carnal by sincerely revering the peerless woman whom 
Christ enthroned on His heart?” 

“ I know at least that the fathers at imperial and pa- 
gan Rome placed a representation of Mary in their 
Pantheon when public policy made it an imperative 
necessity to overthrow the influence of the lewd, fan- 
ciful and ungodly ideals that had been set up th'ferein,” 
responded Cornelius. 

“ The world is a Pantheon full of corrupt ideas. Let 
us raise high the choice ones God has sent us — But 
see, yonder is the wife of a poor old Druse camel-driver. 
She was once a sinner in the streets of Jerusalem. 
Now she is a Sister of Bethany, allured to goodness by 
our Temple’s allegories ! ” 

A woman that was a sinner, a scarlet woman ? ” 
Only such. No ; all of that ! One woman ; a lost 
one? How little to man; how much to God ! Had 
nothing else been done, heaven would have been set 
singing, as ever, over a sinner’s return. That’s reward 
enough for all we’ve attempted.” 

“Now I’m interested, indeed! ” 

“Well you may be, when you hear all. We’ve here one 
once a harem beauty, who, having lost her power to 
fascinate, was committing her life to that hag-cunning 
belonging to old women who supplement their decaying 
power by wickedness, fox-like and serpentine.” 

“ The old, old story ; yet I thank God if her life be 
sweetened.” 


The “ Light of the HaremT 


557 


“ Hers is a strange story.” 

“ May I know it ? ” 

“Yes; it is, as IVe gathered it in scraps, a sad 
romance. She was born of Georgian parents, among 
the mountains of Armenia, and gifted, in her youth, 
as are most of those of her sex in that country, with un- 
usual personal beauty. She early attracted the atten- 
tion of the monsters who dealt in human flesh, and a 
Georgian noble unrighteously claiming her family as 
his serfs, bartered away Nourahmal to merchants seek- 
ing recruits for Mameluke harems. She became, in 
time, part of the retinue of a sheik by the name of 
Azrael, a desperate adventurer, who, on account of his 
blood-deeds, was called by his followers the ‘ Angel of 
Death.’ His luxurious and desperate way of living 
justified his claim to Turkish extraction; his adroit- 
ness and avidity for intrigue stamped him as a Mame- 
luke.” 

“Nourahmal? Azrael? Why, these must be the 
same of whom I’ve heard Sir Charleroy speak ? ’ queried 
Cornelius. 

“ The same ! ” 

“She comes out of the past as one from the dead ! ” 

“ And her story is a series of strange events. It is 
as follows : Azrael suspected her of having abetted 
the escape of my father and Ichabod, therefore de- 
termined to kill her. She gained a temporary respite 
t'hrough having saved her master s life from an assas- 
sin plotting to supplant him ; though she periled her 
own in so doing. 

“ As Azrael awaited her recovery from the wounds 
she had suffered in his behalf, he devised another scheme 
which he hoped would compass his favorite’s destruc- 


^58 The Queen of the House of David, 

tion and his own elevation. He was ambitious to be 
Sherif of Mecca. To attain that honor he saw he 
must needs do something to enhance his popularity 
greatly with his Mohammedan followers, and so con- 
fceived the plan of getting into his power, Harrimai of 
the Jews and Adolphus of the Christians. His purpose 
■Was to rack those two leaders into apostasy and the 
betrayal of their followers. Had he succeeded, the 
event would have been crushing to Jews and Christians 
east of Jordan. He promised Nourahmalher freedom 
and restoration to her Georgian home if she aided him 
in his design ; though he did not disclose his purpose 
to her beyond that of securing the presence of Von 
Gombard and Harrimai in his camp. She felt that 
there was some malign, hidden purpose in her master’s 
breast, but deemed it expedient, at the outset, to seem 
to co-operate in his plan.” 

“ But how was the sheik using his strategy against 
Nourahmal ? ” 

“As a fiend! He, having no conception of a friend- 
ship between a man and a woman that was pure and 
free from intrigue, suspected the relations between his 
favorite and Ichabod. He thought the two only 
needed the opportunity to precipitate into perfidy. He 
laid his plan darkly, and, leaving a trusty follower to 
carry it out, hastened forward to Mecca.” 

“ But surely, Nourahmal was not what he thought 
her!” 

“ No ; though training her as a plastic child, he judged 
she was what he had tried to make her ; at her worst she 
was. But let me continue. The assault on my parents 
and Ichabod, on the road between Gerash and Bozrah, 
was the opening of the drama. The plan then was to 


The “ Light of the HaremT 559 

seize Rizpah, and under pretense of negotiating for her 
ransom, inveigle Harrimai into the hands of Azrael’s 
followers. Nourahmal was to aid in this by affecting 
tears, pleading for pity and suggesting the sending for 
the girl’s father.” 

“ What besetments perilous we pass through, all 
unknown to us ! Harrimai and your parents, to their 
death, never suspected the devices worked against 
them ! ” 

“ Nor dreamed that a harem favorite, a mere girl, 
and an utter stranger to them, was their good 
angel ! ” 

“ Good angel ! How? ” 

“ She witnessed the assault from behind a sequester- 
ing wall, in company with a follower of the sheik, com- 
missioned to kill her instantly if she faltered in the 
part appointed her. This infernal guard was also 
charged to insinuate into her mind the feasibility of 
elopement with Ichabod. If she could be compro- 
mised, Azraelknew he could justify her death to those 
who remembered her heroic defense of himself. That 
was to follow as soon as she had done her part in in- 
veigling Harrimai to Azrael’s camp.” 

A demonstration of a personal devil, Miriamne.” 

I’d say rather of an overruling God.” 

“ How fared Nourahmal after Azrael’s chagrin? ” 

“ Cornelius anticipates me. When she saw Ichabod 
fall, a sudden desire for liberty for herself and to help 
the imperiled Rizpah, prompted her to drive a dagger 
into the heart of her guard and cry, ‘ Rescuers come ! ’ 
That cry drove the remnants of the assailers of Sir 
Charleroy to sudden flight. She asserted to the fugi- 
tives that Laconic, the new runner, just passing, had 


560 The Queen of the House of David, 

slain her guard, and so allayed suspicion until oppor- 
tunity of escaj^e came. She soon made her way to 
Bozrah, where she found among the Christians a tem- 
porary home. From thence she drifted into Jerusalem." 

“’Twas strange she did not turn toward Gerash." 

“ I said as much to her, but desire to get as far as 
possible from Azrael, and as near as possible to the 
Holy City, of which Ichabod had so glowingly spoken 
to her, determined her course ; besides that, Ichabod 
being dead, Gerash was a strange place to her — Jerusa- 
lem seemed to her, she said, near heaven." 

“ Had she only known it, she was near heaven in 
Bozrah, being near Von Gombard." 

“ Her story weaves a chaplet for his tomb to-day; 
for now it appears that from Nourahmal the old priest 
foreknew the intention of those Saracens, who assailed 
the city that day I was with him. Though they designed 
capturing him to put him on the rack, he rushed into 
the conflict, crying, ‘ Kill the foe with kindness ! ’ The 
assault would have been fatal to Bozrah, too, had not 
the leader of one of the invading bands ordered a re- 
treat, just at the point of victory. This was indirectly 
Nourahmal’s work ; for that leader had been won by 
her to esteem Christians far enough to be unwilling to 
murder them, though not adverse to plundering them. 
That was a great improvement in a Mohammedan." 

“And Nourahmal knows from you that you are Sir 
Charleroy’s daughter? " 

“Yes, by that I won her confidence. Indeed, she 
began this confidence at first, by saying, ‘ I love you, 
because you so remind me, angel of the mount, of a 
Christian knight, who was the dear friend of the only 
pyre an 4 unselfish man I knew in all my youth ! Such 


The Light of the HaremT 561 

words led to questions and explanations. The rest you 
know." 

And you have allured, comforted and enlightened 
her?" 

“ By God’s help, I have. I have told her of the uni- 
versal sisterhood of all women, who take as their ex- 
emplar the worthy mother of the One who proclaimed 
the universal brotherhood of man. This knowledge is 
her joy and inspiration. When I am with her, she 
never tires of hearing of the ‘ Queen of David’s House,’ 
the mother of mothers." 

“ But how have you allured her hither, Miriamne? " 

“You have questioned curiously with your eyes, at 
least, concerning those gated alcoves and curtained 
balconies in our Temple of Allegory. They helped 
her!." 

“ Since you say they are not ‘ Confessionals,’ as I call 
them, tell me what they are ? " 

“ ‘ Rock clefts ’ our sisterhood calls them ; some are 
doors to little adjacent chapels; some are quiet resting 
places, where, in impressive solitude, souls in prayer 
may find the mountain manna, for which the Savior 
sought in many a lone night-watching; and some are 
places where are presented, under entrancing symbols, 
exalting truths." 

“ Words have failed to turn the world to faith ; 
may signs do better." 

“I’ve put truth into visible form, that they who get 
it here may learn that truth thus is only up to its full 
might. I’d have my followers believe in visible, not 
phantom, truth ; so believing, truth will not be a ghostly 
proclamation, the toy of the mind^ but a force n^oving 
hands and hearts ! " 


562 The Queen of the House of David. 

“And you have met Nourahmal’s case ? ” 

“Yes; fully in what we call the ‘Lover’s Bower/ 
yonder. Remember she has been the victim of mock 
love, from first to last." 

“ The ‘ Lover’s Bower ’ 1 ’’ 

“ Behold the trophy and the bower! There is Nou- 
rahmal, now rapturously contemplating the picture of 
Joseph putting the ring of espousal on the hand of the 
Virgin Mary.’’ 

“Nourahmal? That gray-haired, hard-faced woman, 
holding the hand of a charming girl ? ’’ 

“That is Nourahmal; the younger woman is Beu- 
lah, her grand-daughter ; they two are almost insepa- 
rable now.’’ 

“ An oleander by a limestone clifY I And so she 
takes her station by a scene of betrothal, forgetting that 
hymen’s altars can be fired by youth alone ! ’’ 

“ The world says so ; but yet a disappointed life may 
sometimes learn why it has been a failure, by study- 
ing the ashes of time gone in the light of quickened 
memories.’’ 

“ What finds Nourahmal there?’’ 

“Golden lessons. First for her grand-daughter, her 
idol. She never tires of saying before yon picture to 
that maiden now her charge : ‘ My flower, my lamb, 

be always as pure as the espoused of Joseph, and you 
will be a jewel which your husband, if he be a true 
man, will ever proudly wear on as his heart, My flower, 
my lamb, no woman should leave all for any man, 
unless she is certain of finding in him father, mother, 
brother, sister, companion, as Mary found in Joseph ! ’ ’’ 

“ But how did these things bless Nourahmal her- 
self?’’ 


The “ Light of the HaremT 


563 


“Love counterfeited, blasted her life. She believed 
that it was only gross passion masquerading in attract- 
ive, delusive colors. So believing, it was difficult to tell 
her of the Love of God so she could realize its wealth. 
Love was only great selfishness, excited and persistent, 
to her mind. It was something to teach her that the 
genuine affection was utterly otherwise ; in fact the 
foundation and crown of all the noblest sentiments im- 
planted by God in His choicest creations. 

“ I have sought to allegorize here, true affection in all 
its perfection. It seems to be fitting to do so, for my 
ideal queen was ruled by it. She never could have 
loved to the depths she did, as a mother, if she had not 
had within her being all the possibilities of woman’s love. 
And in a rightly balanced woman love is all-impressive, 
all-controlling ; with her worship is loving and loving is 
worship. Here I shall seek. to refine that sentiment in 
the hearts of my sisters until each becomes an evangel in 
its behalf. Then mankind will understand the wealth 
a woman bestows on the man that wins her. There 
is nothing in her career that surpasses it, except that 
sovereign act wherein she lays herself a convert on 
God’s altar. I am seeking to exalt this sacred act, the 
loving of the gentler sex, until all men, brought to 
revere it as they ought, shall become true knights ; until 
society shall be of one mind in crying traitor to every 
man that contemns it in wedlock, and ready to lash 
naked around the world every betrayer who awakens it 
in innocency to lead it astray.” 

“ I can only again exclaim, oh ! how full of flowers 
and honey is my Miriamne’s creed and gospel ! ” 

“ And the churchman so exclaims because I’ve put 
love where God put it, at the front of religion’s cohorts ! 


564 The Queen of the House of David. 

Can there be a religion worth the name that does not 
masterfully meet the requirements of the relations most 
sacred between human beings?" 

As she spoke she led her husband under the splendid 
painting of Joseph espousing Mary, toward the en- 
trance of the bower, remarking : “This vestibule, from 
the Roman word Vesta, Goddess of Purity, is suggest- 
ive. Rome placed Vesta among the household gods, 
and was wont to have an altar at every outer door. If 
Purity guard the door, Light and Love will dwell within. 
See the laurel, emblem of victory, as the ancients put 
it by Purity’s altar; so do I. Love, when pure, is all- 
victorious ! ’’ 

“ Miriamne, these old truths seem to me very charm- 
ing as you now present them ; but can Nourahmal and 
others like her enter into their meaning? ’’ 

“ A pious saint of our church says that the star which 
guided to Bethlehem finally sank into a spring, where 
it may be yet seen by women if they be pure." 

As they thus communed he passed through an 
arched doorway, and was admitted to a grand court, 
three sides of which were inclosed by the temple and 
two of its wings, the fourth side hedged by palms, 
vine-interlaced. The sky was the roof, the carpet the 
floor of that country. Just in front of the palm-hedge, 
on a grassy hillock, conspicuous beyond all else, was 
a colossal stone face. It seemed as if it had emerged 
from the earth, bald of all life — desolation expressed in 
mute stone. 

“ Astarte here ! " exclaimed Cornelius. 

“ Yes ; that’s part of my Bashan inheritance, from 
Kunawat, the land of Job." 

“ A woman and a devil beset him ; (the two are in this 


The Light of the HaremT 565 

face, methinks). Its hideousness, as its import, seems 
inappropriate in Love’s Bower.” 

‘‘Yes, ’tis hideous now, though once the face had 
beauty. It is not futile for young-love to remember 
that time gouges deformity into beautifulness, nor for 
all to remember how the Kings of the East in Moses’ 
time overthrew the Rephaim, the fallen giant followers 
of the goddess. The East is the home of light, and 
light is fateful to evil lives. Where are the Astarte- 
devotees now ? ” 

As the man listened his eyes wandered to the place 
where the palm grove came up against the temple 
wing, and there he observed a purling ribband of water. 

“ Cornelius sees my poem of silver. It comes from 
a grove of cedars and sharon roses, out of a spring in 
the bosom of a hill. Look the other way. It passes 
under the alcove, under the temple wall; a short, dark 
passage brings it to . liberty, ending in the Virgin’s 
Pool of Kidron. The sun allures it up to the clouds 
at last. But listen ; it sings as it runs! ” 

“ I hear many blending melodies.” 

“Do you see that canopied dais? There the in- 
structor, or preacher if you will, stands. The stream 
passes near it, getting impulse by a fall ; true love is 
speeded when it runs by truth. That’s my lesson. 
Then there are .^olian harps this side and that of the 
dark alcove, the latter the type of the tomb.” 

“ But why ? ” 

“ True love has music both sides of the grave.” 

“'Mystic I ” 

“ Interpreter, say.” 

“But I hear the songs of birds?” 

“There they are, this side the dark exit ; but in a 


566 The Queen of the House of David, 

cage, supported above the current by an hour-glass and 
sickle.” 

“ Grim emblems.” 

“ Yes ; but it’s a grim truth that love’s joy notes here 
are caged, hampered and transitory. The hour-glass 
and sickle are, when those notes are sung, ever. 

‘‘ Look to the West.” 

I look, and see nothing but the picture of a sun- 
set.” 

“Yes, and that curtains the ‘ Rest of the Aged ’ in 
our temple.” 

“ But whither am I led by these words ? ” 

“ Led to look toward sunset, for morning, by faith. 
You remember the Christ was never old; neither are 
they who draw their life from Him. The ‘ Ancient of 
Days ’ not only has, but gives, eternal youht. Oh, there 
were young men at His sepulcher; yet those angels 
could count their years by centuries ! Let the hour 
glass make record and the sickle reap ; the passion 
flower recalls a vernal life, where the oldest saints are 
the youngest, where all existence is growth, refresh- 
ment, glory, exultation ! There, love is law and law is 
love, and to love is to live and to live is to love. We 
get a breath of this life here as we enter the vicinage 
of the immortal pair, Jesus and Mary; and we get a 
distant view of the whole from the mountains of the 
gospel.” 

“ I believe, and yet sometimes start back at the 
question, ‘ What if, after all, at the end almost of eter- 
nities there come monotony, decadence, satiety — 
death?’ Next after hell, and nigh as horrible, is anni- 
hilation ; and worst of all, eternal existence with noth- 
ing for which to strive — a living death ! ” 


The ‘‘ Light of the HaremT 


567 


They say, that in Egypt, a palm bowed to give shade 
to the mother, Mary ; while the aspen refused to her 
any comfort. Then Christ blessed the palm and it 
became the fruitful evergreen, while the aspen leaf is 
fated to the end of time by constant tremblings to 
betoken the agues of a cursed life. But, under the sun 
in submission, our aspen lives are turned to palms ! 
We, having His life, need never tremble at death, for 
we shall ever throb with a loving like His.” 

“ But there are many conditions and needs to woman- 
kind. Let us speak of these, since the present is hers, 
the future God’s.” 

The knights vainly tried swords ; my King prom- 
ised to draw all men to Himself. You told me how Sir 
Galahad, the pure knight, had made, about the Holy 
Grail, when he found it, a chest of precious stones 
and gold. Now, I’ve found the virgin pattern of per- 
fection, representative of the human-like beating heart 
of God. Here I’ve set her, exalted her. This shall be 
her golden precious palace. Though dead, here shall 
be presented in the grandeur of her character, the 
sweetness of her power. By and by, it may come about 
that all mankind akin, shall make it the chief duty of 
Church and State, to care, with a loyal tenderness, for 
all women, all children, from first and last ; that not one 
such shall be left miserable. That will be the world 
obeying the Crucified’s, ^ Behold thy mother.’ ” 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


CROWN JEWELS. 

*‘The Virgin Mary unquestionably holds forever a peculiar 
position among all women in the history of redemption. Perfectly 
natural, yea, essential to a sound religious feeling, it is to associate 
with Mary, the fairest traits of maidenly and maternal character, 
and to revere her as the highest model of female love and power.’' 

—Prof. Philip Schaff’s Church History, 

HERE’S a footman at the door; the good 
man that talks, I think ; he would speak 
with Cornelius.” 

With such words, at sunrise one morn- 
ing a few weeks after the May-day service, the mission- 
ers of Bethany were aroused by an attendant. Quickly 
robing himself, the young chaplain went forth, and, 
sure enough, the Hospitaler stood before him. 

“ Selamet ; but what haste brings our ever-welcome 
friend so early? ” 

“ To relieve your minds ! I’ve purchased immunity! 
The Mameluke sheik, at Jerusalem, has secured the 
Sultan’s revocation of the order of razing and banish- 
ment,” answered the knight. Cornelius gazed at the 
Hospitaler with anxiety, questioning within himself as 
to whether the knight had taken leave of his reason or 
not. 

The abrupt soldier-priest perceiving the perplexity 
of his hearer broke forth : “ Why the edict that the 



Crown Jewels. 


569 


Temple on the hill be de3poiled, and the ^Angels of 
the Mount ’ be summarily driven out of Syria, has been 
rescinded; the ‘ Faithful,’ as those infidels style them- 
selves, have been converted ; seen a great light which 
came by mighty gold.” 

All Saints defend us ! I did not hear of this. Tell 
me all ! ” exclaimed Cornelius. 

“Not now; the peril is past. I knew it was im- 
pending sometime, and supposed ye did. ' I prom- 
ised a reward, if time were given. I got money help 
from foreign knights. The vandals took it with a 
mighty thirst, and then with a great show of piety 
promised toleration.” 

“ I see, as usual with them, great gain with godli- 
ness is contentment ; but what are we on the mount 
to do ? ’■ 

“ Go oh ; the Sultan isn’t God, nor his sheik the 
Devil.” 

“The Hospitaler comforts. Now let us enter and 
breakfast together, that we may get wisdom by con- 
ferring.” 

“ I may not tarry longer ; I staid all night without 
the city’s wall so as not to be delayed by awaiting the 
gate-opening. I must be with my companions by the 
time the Moslems have ended their first prayers, or my 
comrades will be alarmed. I’ll return to-morrow.” 

Another dawn, another noon, and another sunset, 
came and went; but the knight did not reappear at 
Bethany. The chaplain vainly tried to suppress his 
anxiety. He feared some treachery on the sheik’s 
part. Again and again the former went to the house- 
top to look along the Jerusalem road. It was a hot 
June day ; the watchings flushed the young man’s face, 


570 The Queen of the House of David. 

but fears’ rigors in the heart paled it. He was a 
picture of misery. Darkness followed sunset ; then 
came tidings : 

There’s a company with garlands and torches com- 
ing around the bend ! ” 

The news was brought by a company of Sisters of 
Bethany. The missioner was excited, yet reasoned : 

“ Garlands and torches ! Their bearers can not have 
baleful report nor evil designs.” 

The visitants quickly arrived, and singing a rounde- 
lay, encircled the house of Cornelius and Miriamne. 
With delight the latter recognized the Hospitaler and his 
companion knights. With them were a number of the 
friends of the new movement at Bethany. They also 
observed, standing by his camel, a little aloof, a tall, 
gaunt man, garbed as a Druse ; by him, an elderly wo- 
man, and also a maiden. 

’Tis Nourahmal and her grand-child !” whispered 
Miriamne, following her husband’s questioning eyes. 

“ The maiden wears the flower crown of a bride, and 
see, there is a young man by her side ! ” 

The Hospitaler interrupted their converse : 

“ I’ve kept my promise to the ‘ Angels of the Mount ’ 
and to God. I’m here, and to celebrate a proper 
thanksgiving ! ” 

“Welcome! Now command us,” exclaimed Miri- 
amne. “ Yea, welcome, though coming in mystery ! ” 

“Another surprise, good chaplain? Well, 'tis fit- 
ting, since this one is cheering. There was need of 
offset to thy painful astonishment of yesterday. I’ve 
trapped a wolf for our festivities.” 

“A wolf!” exclaimed Miriamne. 

“Yes, even the shiek. He swore that he’d make 


Crown /ezvels. 


571 


all Bethany bald by fire and sword if it were at- 
tempted here to establish a Christian church. To 
him I explained that the work on the hill was festal. 
Praise God, it is to be such, to all eternity! And 
Miriamne’s disavowal of the title church, the use of 
the appellations ‘ Pool of Bethesda,’ ‘ House of Mercy,’ 
* Tem|jle of Allegory,’ and the like, by your followers 
in th : city, concerning your place of gathering, helped 
the righteous diversion. I finished the argument by 
parading with my cortege, as you see us now. In- 
deed I even asked the sheik to come to the wedding I ” 
A wedding? ” 

“ The cruel sheik invited ? ” 

“ Two questions and two questioners to be answered 
with more surprises. Nourahmal’s grand-daughter, 
Beulah, is to be joined to a Jewish convert,! I asked 
the sheik to attend with us as one of her next akin ; 
for I believe him to be a son of Azrael, though he 
denies that parentage, as well he may, since the 
‘ Angel of Death ’ was strangled at Bagdad for treason. 
Be assured, Miriamne, the young Mohammedan will 
not be present at our ceremonies to-night ! ” 

“ Will wonders never cease ? ” spoke Cornelius, at a 
loss to know what to say. 

“ No. Let us be going now,” abruptly spoke the 
Hospitaler. 

“ Do you return to the city so soon?” queried Miri- 
amne. 

The question was answered indirectly : 

“Let’s to the temple, or ‘ House of Bethesda.’ I’ve 
taken the liberty to order its illumination. Come, we’ll 
see how its jasmines climb on its sturdy walls by the 
light of the torches kindled for hymen 1 ” 


572 The Queen of the House of David. 

So saying, the Hospitaler turned in the direction 
mentioned, and all, including the missioners, followed 
him. The scene was fairy-like. There were lights and 
flowers and songs. The feasters from Jerusalem were 
in holiday attire, and those of the villagers that joined in 
the concourse were hearty participants in the festivities. 

Arriving at the temple, the Hospitaler led Beulah 
toward the speaker’s dais. 

*‘Will not the camel-driver enter?” questioned the 
knight of a companion. 

No ; he’s half way back to the city by this time.” 

“Stand by thy other self,” said the knight to the 
Jewish groom. 

The latter obeyed with alacrity ; his zeal and his 
bashfulness precluding grace of action. 

“Four hands clasped ; crossed,” said the Hospitaler. 

The twain did as commanded, the youth with 
avidity, the maid with a timorous, modest reserve. 
The touch of each, electric to the other, was recorded 
in their faces, over which passed rapidly a poem of 
emotion. The audience became silent, hushed by 
admiration akin to adoration. The old, old, yet ever 
new, ever-entrancing spectacle of love’s full crowning, 
brought to all minds the splendor and holiness of that 
royal gift which finds in earth its completest unfold- 
ment in wedlock. Each of the auditors, conscious of 
admiration of the presentment, was also conscious of 
self-approving. There is a cleansing of conscience like 
that which follows prayer in the act of heartily appro- 
bating the thing which is good and beautiful. With 
the espoused for his inspiration and his background of 
light, the Hospitaler, with his usual abruptness, began 
addressing the assembly : 


Crown Jewels. 


573 


‘‘ You of the East hear best when your eyes are treated 
together with your ears, hence I speak at this time, most 
propitious, of themes pertinent. You have heard how the 
ancient Romans named this month, deemed by them favor- 
able to marriage, Junonius, in honor of their chaste and 
prudent goddess of conjugal life. She was the Hera of the 
Greeks, the only lawfully wedded goddess of all their 
mythologies. The myths prove that those pagans discerned 
the potency and beauty of holy wedlock. They polished 
jewels and wove girdles for its personifications, and to-night, 
in this temple dedicated to womanhood at her best, I’d take 
the girdle and crown and place them upon the Queen of 
Women, the peerless Virgin. For such a real woman the 
ancients were seeking when they had their dream of the 
myths. She was what they yearned for, and her exaltation 
as the representative of all that she truly did represent, will 
be found of lasting profit to all. Behold her, an orphan 
girl, yet by faith having an Eternal Father. As a girl, ab- 
horring waywardness ; as a woman, therefore, free from wan- 
tonness. Mark me, ye maidens, the wayward becomes the 
wanton. Coquetry brushes the -down from the cheek of 
the peach, and she that frivolously plays with passion in the 
morning will be likely to seek the groves of Astarte at noon. 
Our ideal woman reached maidenhood’s roses all portion- 
less, as world-help is counted, but with the inestimable 
affluence of prudence, constancy and purity. Thus she set 
the finest youths of all Jewry to striving for her heart and 
hand. What Juno was to Rome, Mary was to Israel. The 
Romans proclaimed their faith in the good wife as the pro- 
ducer and conserver of wealth by putting their mint in 
their temple of ^ Juno -Moneta I The. carpenter of Nazareth, 
building up a clean, honest, though humble home, by the 
aid of his consort, built more enduringly, and presents a 
finer historical figure, than that once mighty, once wise Sol- 
omon ; though the latter erected the wondrous Temple. The 
home and love of Joseph and Mary will be praised by the 
ages that abhor the ivory houses of pleasure of the great 
and fallen king. The story of that home life at Nazareth 
has not been written, and we must gather it from fragments 
and eloquent silence. Mary’s jewels as a wife were unos- 
tentatiously treasured within the four walls of her domicile. 
The devastating tornado leaves enduring, though hateful 


574 


The Queen of the House of David, 


history ; but the constant, man-blessing tides of the ocean 
come and go without having their recurring blessings re- 
corded. So the constant, loyal, patient woman of Nazareth 
passed noiselessly by in her day. Her exclamation to the 
Angel of the Annunciation, ‘ Behold the handmaid of the 
Lord^ he it u7ito me according to thy word,' was the keynote 
of that life ever enhanced by the beauty of duty. There 
was submission to right because it was righteous. And this 
was not mere passiveness. You remember how she chal- 
lenged her Son in His early youth, that time He was absent 
for a season from His parents, at first without explanation ? 
The words Mary spoke that day burn like polished gems 
when considered aright : ‘ Why hast thou dealt thus with us ? 
Behold, thy father and I have sought thee, sorrowing' She 
did not forget her Son’s divine origin, but exalted the rights 
of motherhood and fatherhood, confident that even Deity 
could not ignore them. She challenged the right of a son 
to cause parental sorrow without instant strong reason for 
so doing. She put her husband's cause before her own, and 
made his honor her sacred wifely trust. There are in this 
history some very fine things expressed by implication. We 
know the woman was beautiful and much younger than her 
husband ; the disparity of years did not hinder full affinity. 
She did not fall into the weakness of feeling self-sufficient 
and all-complacent because feeling pretty. All she was and 
all she had was centred in her consort as a commonwealth 
between him and her. That the sycophant and flatterer 
crossed her path there can be no doubt ; but she who was 
not intoxicated by Bethlehem’s gloria in excelsis could not 
be dazzled by the honeyed words of mortals. Wearing such 
a wife on his heart, .Joseph was rich indeed. Silence is 
once more eloquent. We know that the mother of Jesus, 
having been widowed, never wed again. Her first love suf- 
fered no eclipse. That she was courted, after her spouse's 
death, we must believe. The mother of a Son so famous 
as was hers, and the possessor of personal charms enshrin- 
ing a soul that knew how to utilize sorrows until they became 
refinements, doubtless had many suitors in her widowhood 
days. And there was no law forbidding her a second mar- 
riage, except the unwritten law of fine sentiment ; but to 
the Queen of the House of David the law of fine sentiment 
was all-controlling. All her heart was filled with love for 


Crown Jewels, 57^ 

her husband, her Son and her Savior. When her consort 
died, the niche in her heart that he occupied, the only part 
with room for conjugal love, became a shrine. Its door was 
sealed then until the final resurrection. Where such con- 
stancy exists there is certainty of pure homes. Sanctity, 
chastity and faithfulness were the lights of the temple, 
dedicated to the mythical Juno, within whose precincts no 
impure woman was suffered to enter. To-day I claim for 
the True Ideal all that was accorded the mythical one.” 

When the speaker paused, some of the men present 
broke forth, as was the custom in the synagogue serv- 
ice, with an “ Amen,” and some exclaimed “ Rabbi, 
thine are good words for our women to hear! ” 

The Hospitaler’s black eyes flashed ; a hint of retort 
of lightning-like directness to come. And it came, in- 
stantly : 

“ I shall fail of my duty if I give all to one-half. I shall 
fail of my intent if my words seem like railings at the sex 
most-tender, most burdened. Since we are treating of the 
weeds of the mourners, let us question why it is that wid- 
owers more frequently seek remarriage than do widows. 
The bereaved man easily says : ‘ Get me another wife.’ 
The bereaved woman more frequently says : ‘ Let me hurry 
on heavenward after my only and ever beloved.’ 

“ With the true woman marriage is a committal so utter 
that it is difficult for her, generally, to make it more than 
once. Again me thinks that marriage brings the graver, 
heavier loads to women. Once experienced, there is need 
of a mighty love to allure her to a second trial. The man 
rises by self-assertion, and wedlock does not hinder him. 
With the woman wedlock means self-denial ; her name 
changes, her career is merged into that of her consort ; her 
body is given, literally, to the new beings she bears. To 
woman marriage has no parallel, except death. Her only 
possible compensation is love, and that she should receive 
with measures knowing no stint. Oh, men, all fair to other 
men, all merciful to the beasts that toil, all prudent in keep- 
ing in motion, by day and by night, the water-wheels in 
your orange and mulberry groves, be fair and merciful to 
your consorts. Yea, and evermore water with love’s most 


$7^ The Queen of the House of David, 

grateful refreshments the bearing vines whose tendrils in- 
twine your hearts, whose fruits enrich your homes. This is 
religion ; what is less is heresy, and he who deals unkindly, 
cruelly or niggardly with his other self, can not face God. 
The prayers of such are hindered and like unto a tree whose 
leaves are storm-stripped. You know the race, by birth, 
comes forth in two sexes, of equal numbers, a hint of God’s 
plan to have mankind live as pairs ; but the men are a con- 
stant majority. Why ? I answer that, notwithstanding the 
perils falling upon the sterner sex, by exposure, by war, and 
all such things, the trials falling to woman’s lot work the 
greater havoc, keeping her sex in huge majority in the 
places of the dead. Now you praise me, because I’ve told 
your women to be like the glorious Mary? Praise me 
again for telling them, as I do this instant, to be like her 
in choice of consorts. If they can not find Josephs to begin 
with, God grant to make the men they have like the choice 
spouse who fell to Mary’s lot ! ” 

The Hospitaler paused for a moment ; there was a 
wave of excitement, very near to applause, running over 
the audience. The bride and the groom, together with 
all the women present, by their faces expressed their de- 
light. The men who had exclaimed at the first, looked 
blank and kept silent now. 

Abruptly, as before, again the knight spoke: 

“ I’ll touch now another pertinent theme — Mary mider the 
shadows of scandal ! I’d exalt her as one having sounded 
the depths of woman’s misery, and yet preserving her integ- 
rity. I know that some here will think themselves offended, 
since it’s the fashion so to think when listening to discourse 
such as I now intend. Society, more prudish than sincere 
or wise, has demanded that the burning, scarlet, social wrong 
be spoken of, only by scrupulous hint, half words and re- 
serves, at least among decent and happy folks. For once, 
as God’s accredited ambassador. I’ll change all this, and by 
Purity’s earthly throne, the marriage altar, denounce the 
crime of crimes, the blasting curse of all mankind. Let him 
that’s conscious of his own impurity mince words. I’ll not ! 
Jehovah might have brought forth the Christ without sub- 
jecting Nazareth’s Virgin to the painful necessity of being 


Crown Jewels', 


577 

doubted. It was as He decreed and wisely ordered. The 
happening was not because Deity was frustrated, but because 
He knew that she whose example was to be woman’s inspi- 
ration, could be so more surely, if her career took her along 
all lines of woman’s needs. There was a time when almost 
all who knew Mary doubted her integrity ; a time when her 
name was banded about by the roues of her native place ; 
a time when even her betrothed was resolving to renounce, 
if not to denounce her. First I’d speak of how impurity is 
abhorred of God, and then of His wondrous effort to allure 
those lost by it, as evinced in sending out after them the 
two lambs — the Eternal Lamb and the lamb-like woman. 

To say that they whose trend is toward things unclean are 
abhorred of God is to re-echo the edicts of nature and his- 
tory. They say whenever a sin is committed a devil is 
created to avenge it. What legions avenge this sin which, 
most of all, brutalizes man and turns all social relations into 
anarchy ! Ask your men of science. They^will tell you 
that all the evils flesh is heir to seem to get their seeds 
herein. Immortal revenge haunts it ! Yo.u know, how in 
the Christian’s holy book, it is affirmed that many sicken and 
die because partaking of the cup of the holy communion 
unworthily. Presumptuous hypocrisy thus meets the wrath 
which paralyzed Uzzah and Jeroboam. But the cup of the 
passion was love’s highest gift, and the offense is not 
against the cup but against love in its sublimest display. 
Therefore forever death is the penalty that overhangs those 
who outrage this finest gem of angels and mortals. Treason 
to love is suicidal as well as murderous ! They say that 
there is a demon whose touch causes hideous, coiling, sting- 
ing serpents to grow from the bodies of those he touches. 
I’ll tell you his name — Lasciviousness, and he works fate- 
fully wherever man abides. But the pure home is an in- 
vincible bulwark against him, and hymen’s torch his blinding 
horror.” 

There were some of the knight’s auditors, both men 
and women, who felt it their duty, because of custom, 
to affect disapproval of the free speaking they heard. 
Of these dissenters the women uttered no word, but 
their eyes glared, and the color went and came in their 


§7^ The Queen of the House of David. 

cheeks. The disapproving men exhibited faces as 
hard as marble, while their lips mumbled incoherently. 

The knight was not slow to perceive the rising 
storm, but he was undaunted. He waxed more earn- 
est and more eloquent ; his words and theme inflamed 
him. 

One favorable to his faithfulness remarked to a 
comrade : 

“The Hospitaler seems to grow taller, as if filled and 
enlarged by an inspiration.” 

His face shone as that of Moses when bearing the 
law, and some cowered as if they heard coming toward 
them, from afar, the rumblings of Sinai. Some white 
souls present wept, moved more by the truth in its 
beauty and power than they could have been by any 
play on their emotions. It was an hour of true ora- 
tory’s triumph ; logic set on fire ; a consecrated herald 
grappling awful sin with the power of omnipotence. 

Presently, after the thunder and lightning, came “ the 
still, small voice.” The man of God spoke with loving 
persuasiveness; he healed with words, the woundings 
truth had made. Then he carried his audience with 
him. Many bowed their heads to weep, as trees beaten 
by winds that carried rain ! 

“ We can all entreat fallen men as to most sins, why not 
as to the chief sins ? We speak to the fathers, brothers and 
sons faithfully, pleadingly ; why not to the women who are 
elect to companion creation’s lords ? Alas, the women have 
the greater need of helpful admonition, when they fall, for 
revilings and black despair fill up the cup of their remorse ! 
You have heard of the Feast of Lanterns among the Chin- 
ese ? Those pagans, once a year, go out with many-col- 
ored lights to symbolize Mercy seeking lost daughters. 
Shall God’s choicest people fall behind the pagan ? Never, 
if true to the noble, tender, pure spirit that emanates from 


Crown Jewels, 


579 


God’s own ideal of womanhood. No, no ! let us vow with 
unwonted zeal, amid the lights, lessons and joys of this 
hour, to be knights of new order ; knights of the white 
cross ; sworn to denounce all impure practices on our own 
part, and on the other hand to strive to allure the fallen to 
that that is clean and white as the souls of the angels which 
do excel ! Let us go to those whom sin has made drunk, 
in their despairing. Let us tell them that doubt castles are 
stormed ! Let us proclaim the seed of the woman the ser- 
pent’s destroyer ! Go, women to women, in woman’s name, 
remembering that pity in the soul makes him or her that 
hath it successful suppliant for all mercies at the throne on 
which forever the Interceding Son of the Virgin reigns ! 
Go, fathers, making your fatherhood godlike in its just ten- 
derness ! Go, brothers, sons of women, as pure, strong 
brothers indeed ! There is many a scarlet woman to-day 
with scalded eyes and ashen heart who is so because she 
believed men brothers and fathers and found some wolves 
and vultures. Go to those who have all days as nights, all 
joys as apples of Sodom. They were not always so, and 
need not so continue. Do not belittle their sin, yet seek to 
allure them by a noble presentment of purity and by all en- 
couragement to attempt to win back their lost crowns. Tell 
them of the woman that stood serenely amid bitterest scorns, 
and say as did her Son to one like them : ‘ Go, and sin no 
77iore' Then teach those who have no such blot upon them 
to be kind and helpful. We can never judge any soul’s 
guilt until we at last know the measure of the temptation ! 
God alone knows that. 

“ I could speak on this theme for hours ; but this is 
enough ! The story of Mary has somehow ever had pecu- 
liar efficacy with the blighted of her sex. They easily are 
led, when all men fail them, to dare to trust the One who had 
a mother so tender. Many a motherless outcast has found 
Christ in trying to find mother-love in Mary. After the 
phantasmagoria of illusive pleasure it is healing, through 
faith in God’s exemplified love, to dream of how it seems 
to have a real mother’s arms enfolding one. I hold that it 
is profitable to the impure man, sometimes looking within 
the Pantheon of memory, to find therein conceptions he 
treasured in his purer days ; but with more determined 
assertion I find that it lifts up the soiled woman to come 


\ 


580 The Queen of the House of David, 

in contact with the girdle of power and crown jewels of 
that maiden and mother of Nazareth and Bethlehem. It 
was she that stood against imperial Rome, in the person 
of Herod ; a chaste young Jewess against corsleted ani- 
mality ; a country maiden, heaven-endowed, against an old 
fox ; the loyal mother-eagle against the python ! But 
she that was simply good evaded, outran, soared above, 
and finally confounded the evil at its lowest dip, its 
highest power ! ” 

Then the orator-knight, waving his hand to Cor- 
nelius to signify to him that the missioner was to con- 
clude the ceremonial, abruptly closed his address and 
retired to one of the little alcove-chapels. 

A simple espousal service followed, and then the 
company gathered dispersed, going to join in hastily- 
arranged festivities in the park by the temple. The 
Hospitaler and the missioners were auditors. 

“ Nourahmal, I can well believe, was a rare beauty ; 
her grand-child has her features, and she’s a vision.” 

“ What time my friend here, the Hospitaler, did not 
engage me I was admiring the groom,” Miriamne re- 
sponded to her husband. 

“ He hails from the Jabbock country,” remarked the 
knight. 

“Jabbock? Faithful Ichabod’s native place?” ex- 
claimed Miriamne. 

“ He was the groom’s uncle,” quoth the knight. 

Then the trio were silent, the thoughts of each fol- 
lowing back over the past years and along God’s prov- 
idences. The way life’s lines were crossed, interwoven 
and entangled seemed to each very wonderful. 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE QUEEN’S VISION OF THE “AGE OF GOLD AND 

FIRE.” 

“ Oh, moist eyes, 

And hurrying lips and heaving heart ! 

The world we’ve come to late is swollen hard 
With perishing generations and their sins ; 

The civilizer’s spade grinds horribly 
On dead men’s bones, and can not turn up soil. 
That’s otherwise than fetid. All successes 
Prove partial failure ******* 

* * * * All governments, some wrong ; 

The rich men make the poor who curse the rich. 
Who agonize together, rich and poor. 

Under and over in the social spasm. 

:je s(t * * * * * 

Who being man and human, can stand calmly by 
And view these things, and never tease his soul 
For some great cure. 

— Mrs. E. B. Browning : “ Aurora Leigh'* 


“ They went up into an upper room. 

With the woman and Mary the mother of Jesus.” 

“ Many signs and wonders were done. 

All that believed had all things common.” 

—Acts. 

’M anxious for the coming of the people 
to-day ; Beulah said, a week ago, at her 
wedding, that she’d have the old Druse 
camel-driver at this service ; though he ran 
away from her marriage feast.” 




The Queen of the House of David. 

“ I’ve heard that she and her grandmother had a 
convert to our faith, nearly ripe,” replied Cornelius to 
his wife. 

At this instant one of the “ Bethany Sisters ” tim- 
idly approached the speakers, evidently anxious to 
deliver some communication. 

’Tis ‘ Brightness ’ by name and by nature,” remarked 
Miriamne. 

“ Well, sister Ziha, what is it ? ” questioned the 
chaplain. 

“ Pardon me ; but there is waiting Without, a graVe 
and taciturn man who says he would speak with thd 
^ Prophetess.’ He means our Miriamne.” 

“ Of what flavor is he, Ziha?” 

“Surely, I can not imagine, sister Miriamne! His 
countenance is that of a Persian Jew ; his turban is 
Turkish ; his tunic Christian. But his bearing is that of 
a prince, though all his belongings, except his gor- 
geously dressed camel, are those of a beggar ! ” 

“ I’ll see him, Ziha ; bid him enter,” exclaimed Miri- 
amne. 

“ That I did ; but he says his haste is too great and 
his limbs too stiff for dismounting. In truth, his brow, 
bleached to the bone, tells of weighty years.” 

“ Let’s go to him,” said the chaplain. 

The missioners going forth, at the easterly side of 
their temple, were confronted by a majestic figure, 
mounted on a splendidly caparisoned white camel, evi- 
dently a borrowed one. 

“ Ullah makumf “ God be with you,” said the man 
on the camel with great courtliness and dignity, at the 
same time extending to the chaplain a parchment 
roll 


The Queens Vision. 


583 


** This for me ? ” questioned the latter. 

“ For thee,” replied the rider, bowing as before, but 
looking past the question with fixed, though reverent, 
gaze at Miriamne. 

“ But who are you ? ” again questions the chaplain. 

“God knows,” was the sententious reply of the 
rider, his eyes still turning, not with curiosity, but with 
a deferential and affectionate interest, toward the 
chaplain’s wife. 

“What message here, my father? ” questioned again 
Cornelius, in the language of Galilee. 

The aged man’s dark face lightened at the words, 
and turning his reverent gaze from Miriamne toward 
the questioner, he slowly responded : 

“ The ‘ Angels of the Mount ’ are not too proud to 
call a poor camel driver ^ my father ? ’ Age has respect 
here! I might have known this: Nourahmal is full of 
the odors of this new Bethany I ” 

“And do you come from Nourahmal?” quickly 
interrogated Miriamne. 

“ Nourahmal and I are one, by the voice of God 
spoken through the holy Hospitaler, who is alluring 
me daily from the secret faiths of my fathers to learn 
the prayers that Nourahmal learns here.” 

“ I see,” continued Miriamne ; “ I speak with Nou- 
rahmal’s consort. Pray dismount for refreshment. We 
bid you every welcome, Mahmood.” 

“ Mahmood ! called by such fine people by my proper 
name ; not ‘ dog ’ or ‘ here you,’ or ‘ old camel goad ! ’ 
Wonderful ! ” 

“ Will Nourahmal’s spouse dismount ?” 

“ Blessed woman. I’ve had great refreshment in 
bving thus permitted to see thee face to face, and 


584 The Queen of the House of David. 

thank thee and thine for what thou hast done for me 
and mine ; but I can not tarry ; old age and poverty 
have bargained to make constant toil my master. I 
must keep moving or the swifter youths will take away 
my master and leave me to hire out to starvation ; ” so 
saying, the speaker smote his camel and the beast 
moved away, slowly, along the road toward Jerusalem. 

Cornelius, recovering himself from his meditations, 
called after the departing Druse. 

“What of this parchment ?” 

“The Hospitaler sent it! He said it would talk 
with ‘ the Angels of the Mount.’” 

The camel driver had stopped his beast to say this 
much. For a moment he looked at the missioners, 
then at their temple and its surroundings. There was 
a world of questioning, and wonder, and yearning in 
the old man’s countenance. Again his goad fell on 
the beast he rode and the latter bore him along. 

“ Shall we meet again, father ? ” Cornelius called 
after him. 

“ Stay master work ! Go master want ! ’Till good 
shade Death takes to the cool rest-land the holy Hos- 
pitaler, the Angels of the Mount, my Nourahmal, and 
may be me; even me the poor, old, camel-driver, Mah- 
mood! ” was the slow reply as the Druse departed. A 
turn in the road soon shut him from view. 

“ Well, my spouse, Miriamne, our new Bethany sees 
strange visitants these days,” remarked her husband. 

“ The mystic Druse is finding something that is finer 
than the creeds of his mountain clans,” rejoined Miri- 
amne. 

“ Be not too certain ; those Highlanders of Palestine 
gre ever politic ; they’ll quote the Koran to one of 


The Queen s Vision. 585 

Islam, kiss the Bible in the company of Christians ; but 
once alone are Druse to the last.” 

“That is their character; but we’ve a transforming 
gospel ; no man as old as he and companion of such 
advocates of the White Kingdom as the Hospitaler 
and Nourahmal, could talk as did that old man to kill 
time or conventionally. — But you do not study your 
parchment.” Cornelius, recalled by Miriamne’s words, 
unfolded the document given him by the camel-driver, 
and read aloud : 

“ My son and my daughter : Greeting ; the streams of 
gospel blessing rising in the springs of your mountain 
temple reach refreshingly even unto Jerusalem, as I daily 
perceive. Therefore, for your consolation and for the 
enkindling of your pious zeal, I herewith send these lines. 
Work onward, beloved, believing, hoping you have arrived 
at the dawn of a new revelation and well commenced a true 
work for God. To-day, as I sought to interpret His proph- 
ecies, it came to me that that you are attempting to do is 
nigh to being a fulfillment of His word as recorded in the 
manner following by Ezekiel : 

“ Then the glory of the Lord departed frorn off 
the threshold of the house, and stood over the 
cherubim. 

“And the cherubim lifted up their wings, and, 
mounted up from the earth in rpy sight : when they 
went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every 
one stood at the dopr of the east gate of the Lord’s 
house ; and the glory of the God of Israel was over 
them above. 

“ The word of the Lord came unto me, saying : 

“Thus saith the Lord God : I will assemble you out 
of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I 
will give you the land of Israel. 

“ And they shall come thither, and they shall take 


586 The Queen of the House of David. 

away all the detestable things thereof and all the 
abominations. 

“ And I will give them one heart, and I will put a 
new spirit within, and I will take the stony heart. 

“That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine 
ordinances, and they shall be my people, and I will be 
their God. 

“ Then did the cherubim lift up their wings, and the 
glory of the God of Israel was over them above. 

“ And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst 
of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on 
the east side of the city. 

“ These solemn words tell how the glory and favor of 
God was driven from the people of old by their sinning ; 
how slowly, yearningly, God departed ; how in every land 
He provide little sanctuaries for the faithful few. And 
more than all this, the Holy Word describes God in Spirit as 
pausing on the mount to the east of Jerusalem. That paus- 
ing place was your Olivet. The Jewish Rabbins in their 
sacred histories affirm that for three years God, in manifest 
form, tarried, near where your Temple of Allegory stands, re- 
peating over and over the solemn call, ^Return unto me^ and 
I will return unto you!' Beloved, since then the eternal 
voice, through Jesus Christ, has spoken through three min- 
istering years from these mountains to the world. You are 
now re echoing the cry. God be with you, as He is, and 
give you faith to call and call until the ascended Christ 
come into all hearts.” 

“No name to his letter, as usual?” remarked the 
chaplain. 

“ He seems to loathe names almost ; but recently, 
when I made bold to ask him his, he sententiously ob- 
served, ‘God knows ; 'tis in a w’hite stone. I’m to get ; 
for this life I’m only remembered by what I’ve 
done.’ But what engages my husband’s attention 
now? ” 


The Queen s Vision, 587 

rm trying to interpret the picture yonder, over the 
door, to the retreat you call the ^ Mother $ PillowT 

What think you of it ? You perceive it’s the legend 
of the mother pelican feeding her famishing young 
with blood drawn from her own bosom, which she has 
wounded for their food.” 

“ I think the picture likely to depress nervous 
mothers ! ” 

That’s a picture of one side of mother life; look 
beyond it.” 

At that the light from a distant window was let fall, 
by some unseen attendant, all about the entrance to the 
Mother s Pilloiv ! ” 

“ I see a splendid ^ Gabriel ’ above the pelican ; the 
angel’s hand points upward.” 

“ Glorious Gabriel ! Angel of mothers and victories, 
by interpretation, ‘God’s champion!’ You’ve heard 
his titles, Cornelius?” 

“ I know that he bore victory to Gideon and light- 
ened the way for Daniel’s conquest of all Babylon ; 
nor do I forget that he was the angel which com- 
forted giant Samson’s mother before her child was 
born.” 

“Yea, he that made the sign of the cross, doing won- 
drously, above the smoke of Monoah’s altar, was after 
commissioned to greet and guide Mary, the mother of 
the Giant King of the new dispensation.” 

“You’ve fine insights, Miriamne, but there’s incom- 
pleteness in your symbolism here.” 

“True, I feel that; all interpretation of motherhood 
is inadequate; but look further.” 

“ I see the ‘ Queen of Mothers ! ’ Why have you left 
her and the babe in such deep shadows?” 


588 The Queen of the House of David. 

^‘That’s this life’s reality; but look higher.” 

The chaplain complied ; a vine trellis was swung 
aside, and he beheld, above the shadowed picture, in 
an arch reaching nearly to the roof of the temple, 
another, the latter a marvel of light and color. 

“Glorified Mary, uplifted by the babe, now grown 
and Kingly! ” exclaimed the chaplain. 

“And so is taught for mothers’ comfort, that the Son 
of God honored her who bore Him, because she was to 
Him a true mother. May we not believe that this love 
for Mary, in the God heart, is widened into peculiar 
tenderness toward all who give the earth its lords and 
paradise its elect through the crucifixions of mater- 
nity?” 

“ Oh, Miriamne, I’ve learned in the past to stand, as 
it were, with bared head, all reverential in the presence 
of true motherhood ; when I see it strengthened by 
faith, enriched by suffering ; the most entrancing exam- 
ple of self-abnegation on earth! To-day I feel, if pos- 
sible, in these surroundings, a deeper reverence than 
ever, for that estate of woman. Say on.” 

“ Paganism worshiped the sun, the earth, woman ; 
whatever brought forth ; it was its best attempt at ex- 
pressing a vaguely realized yet noble sentiment. The 
religions that repudiated paganism, in their efforts to 
extirpate all idolatry, went to the extreme of denying 
merited honor to some most worthy. Then came the 
Christian revolution, and God turned all eyes toward a 
pure woman. He proclaimed forever the honors of 
motherhood by presenting through it to the world His 
Unspeakable Gift.” 

“ So heaven’s last appeal to our race, after Sinai’s 
thunders and the rapt visions of the prophets became 


The Queens Vision, 589 

ineffective, was made by the eloquence of the life of 
the silent Mary.” 

Well said ! Now filled with that belief, herald the 
White Kingdom ! ” 

“ ril help Miriamne, encouraging, upholding her ; 
for the rest I’ve learned to lean and follow.” 

I’m a column of dust, not a pillar of fire ; and dust, 
alas, to dust returns. There is much to do here, more 
than I shall be able to compass. I’ve hitherto but 
vaguely taught the meaning, power and blessings of 
motherhood.” 

I think more than vaguely.” 

^‘The sun rises in the east. I think we’ve sunrise, 
but the depth, height and breadth has not been 
sounded nor measured yet. Shall we go toward the 
west wing? ” 

^‘Yea, lead, though I’m charmed in this presence.” 

“ I’d lead to the ‘ Rest of the Aged' ” 

“To the retreat with door like a castle? What are 
those amazon forms in armor?” 

“The Peri?” 

“ I bid them welcome in Miriamne’s name, having 
learned that she is serious as well as cunning in weav- 
ing the manna-bearing garlands of every myth about 
her ideals. Say on.” 

“ They say there is beneath the Caucasian mountains 
a wondrous city builded of pearls and precious stones, 
in which dwells a race of surpassing beauty of person. 
I’ve utilized the tradition.” 

“ Oh, the fabled Peri ; but I’m mystified,” 

“They also say,” continued Miriamne, “that Dives, 
a wicked genus, wages constant war against the Peri, 
hoping to possess the treasures of the Peri capital, but 


590 The Queen of the House of David. 

that they successfully repel him and make their 
happiness secure. I have a similitude of the Peri 
city.'’ 

In truth, I wonder now. What fitness for such an 
allegory here ? ” 

“ I think I have come near to a profound truth. 
Listen ; here at the west, I have planned to show what 
makes approaching age a terror.” 

There are many evils which fall upon man's de- 
clining years.” 

“Judge me if my philosophy is faulty. I see ever 
that the fear of being left poor and also old here haunts 
most lives. This fear is the parent of avarice, and 
avarice is a serpent of glowing head and deadly sting. 
It robs society and individuals of the two choicest 
jewels, plenteous benevolence and serene hopefulness. 
You will find that most of the wrongs from man to 
man arise from hearts made cruel by the rigors of 
avariciousness. If we could stay that master passion, 
all streams of benevolence would rise to their flood, 
and hoarding, now a seeming necessity, most fre- 
quently a curse, become the occupation solely of a few 
monomaniacs.” 

“ Miriamne’s philosophy is as invulnerable as a 
knight’s hauberk, but how can you make it a general 
practice ? ” 

“Oh, very easily. I’ve planned to endow our Tem- 
ple of Allegory so that it may not only teach but also 
do beautiful things. I’d have it a Pool of Bethesda, 
stirred continuously to meet every human need.” 

“ Miriamne will have a vast following ; the masses 
believe in loaves and fishes ! ” 

“ TruC; avarice prompts some to a mean faith, but 


The Queen s Vision, 59! 

I seek to slay avarice and blast the love of money, that 
root of all evil,” 

“ ‘ Enthusiast ! ’ a gainsaying world will cry.” 

“And the cry of the world will be then, as often 
before, a burning lie ! So be it. I’m holding up the 
truth, the royal truth of Christianity. I’ll hold it up 
while I have breath, and leave that truth, if God gives 
me grace, as the beacon light on our hill to glow until 
all Christendom puts on a charity as multiform and 
broad as the needs of humanity.” 

“ But there is a large and needy world.” 

“I have a rich Father; the earth is His and the 
fullness thereof. The only difficulty is in securing 
from His stewards an accounting and a beginning of 
payment.” 

“ This, Miriamne, sounds like the dream of a poet, 
ril not waken you from your beautiful trance, but 
still the rough fates of life as it is, and the very com- 
mon commonplace confront us.” 

“ What a world this would be if all mankind was as 
one family, realizing universal brotherhood ! ” 

“This, too, is the dream of the poet, Socialism; 
Astarte’s devotees practiced it in the past.” 

“Now, I’ll say silence! You speak of heathen so- 
cialism. Whatever its form, lust was its corner stone, 
and a barbarous selfishness, which limited it to those 
of each tribe or clan, its best expression ! I speak of 
a vastly finer, grander creed ! I look out and forward 
to a day when all shall know the Lord ; a day when 
law shall be love and love shall be law. Then earth 
shall be an Eden, with plenty for all, such plenty as 
Divine bounty bestows. Christianity means the bring- 
ing in of that day ; the ‘ Precious Gift ' was an earnest 


592 The Queen of the House of David, 

of all needed gifts from on high. When that day 
comes we shall understand why the Pentecostal fire 
came to all hearts in the time when all worshipers 
were thanking the All-Giver for the bounties of the 
harvest. Then avarice shall cease from the earth, and 
men, no more harassed by it, learn to practice all 
bountifulness in youth and mid-life, and also serene 
restfulness when their powers of bread-winning are 
paralyzed by the burdens of years. All will be noble, 
therefore none indolent. There will be no beggars, 
for charity will run before want, ever glad to serve 
those that can not serve themselves. Then those who' 
wear the glory-crowns of gray will be nourished rever- 
ently and gladly, not as if they were useless paupers ; 
not with a niggardly service which seems to be con- 
stantly saying, ‘ How long are you going to live ! ’ 
There will be no more worriment, no more crowdings 
of each other, no more dishonesty among men ! It is, 

I say, the constant fear of coming, in the day when 
the heart is beating the last strokes of its own funeral 
march, to doled charity or to nothing, that makes men 
pile up gain in dishonor and hoard it with miserly 
grasping. Do you remember that Mary returned from 
ministering to Elizabeth to sing her ‘ Magnificat’ with 
these prophetic strains : 

“ ‘ His mercy is on them that fear Him from genera- . 
tion to generation. He hath filled the hungry with 
good things. He hath holpen His servant Israel.’ 

“ From the song she went to humble, painful minis- 
tries in behalf of all the world. Mary supplemented 
the wondrous work of her Son and King, all the way 
bearing as best she could her part of His cross ; all the 
way her quivering heart pierced by the sword that 


The Queen s Vision, 


593 


finally slew Him. She saw His bloody tears turning 
to crown jewels as He ascended from Olivet, and with 
unfaltering faith knelt among His earthly followers 
that she with them might receive her crown of flame. 
That room was the highest point of outlook on earth. 
It was the place of supreme beneficence ; the place 
where God gave Himself up freely for His followers* 
and established the memorial-superlative of the ages. 
Thither they hasted that they might learn how all-re- 
ceiving comes from all-giving, that they might realize 
the measure and splendor of perfect charity, which is 
perfect love.” 

“ Miriamne, whence do you get such wondrous in- 
sights ? ” 

Then the young wife turned aside to her own little 
mountain,” as she called a secret praying place in the 
chapel. She quickly returned, and handing a manu- 
script to Cornelius, said : 

Read, please, of Pentecost.” 

He complied : 

“ Then they that gladly received His word were 
baptized ; and the same day there were added unto 
them about three thousand souls. 

“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ 
doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and 
in prayers. 

“ And fear came upon every soul, and many won- 
ders and signs were done by the apostles. 

“ And all that believed were together, and had all 
things common ; 

“ And sold their possessions and goods and parted 
them to all men, as every man had need. 

“And they^ continuing daily with one accord in the 


594 


The Queen of the House of David. 


temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did 
eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 

“ Praising God, and having favor with all the peo- 
ple. And the Lord added to the church daily such 
as should be saved.” 


CHAPTER XLI. 


A CHIME AND A DIRGE AT CHRISTMAS TIME. 

“Oh, not alone, because his name is Christ; 

Oh, not alone, because Judea waits 
This man-child for her King — the star stands still ! 

Its glory reinstates. 

Beyond humiliation’s utmost ill, 

On peerless throne which she alone can fill, 

Each earthly woman 1 Motherhood is priced 
Of God, at price no man may dare 
To lessen or misunderstand. 

The crown of purest purity revealed 
Virginity eternal, signed and sealed 
Upon all motherhood.” 

—Helen Hunt. 

“ In sorrow thou shalt bring forth.” — Gen. iii. i6. 

“Thou shalt be saved in child-bearing.” — Tim. ii. 15. 

[UNDREDS of willing hands, directed by 
[ Miriamne, were engaged in preparations for 
fitly celebrating the feast of the Nativity at 
Bethany. There was cheerful expectation 
everywhere in the village, and the Temple of Allegory 
was smiling and glowing by day and by night with 
flowers and lights. 

“ Miriamne, look forth ! There approaches our donj- 



59^ The Queen of the House of David, 

icile a company of singing maidens, wearing holly 
wreaths and bearing a kline ! What can it mean ? " 

An instant of wonderment ready to echo the chap- 
lain’s question possessed Miriamne, then with a glow 
of satisfaction on her pale face, she cried : 

“ I know it all ! The maidens of our fraternity have 
been declaring for a month past they’d have me this 
Christmas at our Temple on the Hill, if they must 
needs carry me thither ! ” 

“And they knew you were drooping? Who told 
them? Notl.” 

“ Love has quick eyes, and my sisters love indeed ! ” 

“ But, Miriamne, you surely will not risk your life, 
so precious to all, by going forth to-day?” 

“ The holly, over-canopying the couch they bear, says 
to me : ‘Yea, go.’ I told them the secret of the holly, 
and how those ancient Romans, thinking their deities 
largely sylvan, cherished this shrub, so persistently 
evergreen, in the belief that it afforded a safe and cer- 
tain abiding place for their gods in bitter, biting days 
of winter. The maidens remember their lesson.” 

And shortly after, all went forth toward the temple, 
the physically weak but spiritually strong woman 
borne by her followers in a sort of triumph, and Cor- 
nelius leading ; the latter, that day was one of the hap- 
piest, proudest men in all Syria. He rejoiced and 
exulted in being companion of a woman such as Miri- 
amne was. 

Miriamne entered the temple to find a vast congre- 
gation awaiting her. There was a ripple of excite- 
ment, a deep murmuring of satisfied voices almost 
reaching the proportion of a masculine outbreak of 
applause, as she appeared. Contentment was depicted 


A Chime and a Dirge at Christmas Time, 597 

on all faces, on many real happiness. Neither was it 
transitory ; there was a throbbing of gladness running 
back and forth, rising higher and higher, until it finally 
broke out into an impromptu '‘'"Gloria in excelsis ! 
Then followed a scripture lesson : 

“And Ezra the priest brought the law before the 
congregation both of men and women, and all that 
could hear with understanding, upon the first day of 
the seventh month. 

“And he read therein before the street that was before 
the water-gate from the morning until midday, before 
the men and the women, and those that could under- 
stand ; and the ears of the people were attentive unto 
the book of the law.” 

And now the attention of all was drawn to the 
sound of footsteps in the throbbings of a march, keep- 
ing time to the tones of the organ and the flourishings 
of cymbals. Nigh an hundred Syrian maidens, wearing 
girdles and crowns of evergreen, moved with grace- 
ful evolutions from the temple’s east entrance and 
quickly formed in a crescent nigh to Cornelius and 
Miriamne. They paused in their progress but still 
kept time with their feet arid swinging cymbals. Then 
the crescent was broken ; those in the center standing 
in lines that made a cross ; those at either end group- 
ing as stars. 

“Sisters, we’d hear the fitting song of this day,” 
said Miriamne. Forthwith the gathered company of 
garlanded maidens began to retire, but in perfect 
order, the two star groups passing along as the com- 
pany making the cross went, so preserving the form of 
the tableau, until the exits were reached. As the pro- 
cession went forth the temple bell tolled solemnly, 


598 The Queen of the House of David. 

and the maidens sang, accompanied by organ-notes 
which died away finally like the sigh of tired waves on 
a beaten strand. Cornelius was silent, though his eyes 
were like the eyes of a child awakened from a dream 
of wonderland. 

Miriamne penetrating his thoughts remarked : 

“ Is Cornelius weary of questioning?” 

I listen as to autumn winds in a scared flight through 
weeping forests, instead of to Christmas exultations ! ” 

“ The singers are of my ‘ Miriamne Band,’ as they 
call themselves, in honor of the sister of Moses, Israel’s 
greatest law giver.” 

‘‘ Methinks all here are mystics in thought and poets 
in expression ! ” 

“Then so was God. We are but reproducing His 
lessons ! Remember now how the Egyptian Pharoah 
once commanded that all the male children of his 
Israelitish captives be put to death, to the intent that 
eventually all the females should become the prey of 
his people.” 

“ Miriamne journeys far from Bethlehem.” 

“The mother and the sister watched the ark in 
which the infant Moses was given to the cruel mercies 
of the Nile.” 

“ I remember, but there come no carols from the 
bullrushes.” 

“ Yea, finer than from the reeds of Pan. Listen ; the 
ark, emblem of God’s covenant, carried the law. The 
mother and sisters, by the ministries of a love which 
never faltered, frustrated wily Egypt, saved themselves^ 
their male companions, and finally their whole race. 
When God embalms a history it is well to look into it 
for germs of mighty portent.'' 


A Chime and a birge at Christmas Time. 5^0 

But thinking of this distant and bitter history, we 
are kept from Bethlehem, Miriamne.” 

“ So the Red Sea and the wilderness preceded the 
Promised Land. You remember there were fears 
and tears before Miriam and her mother saw their 
babe safely adopted at the palace ; so there were 
pains and toils to Mary along the way from Bethle- 
hem’s manger to Bethany’s mount of Ascension.” 

The words of Miriamne were broken off by a strain 
of the organ that was very like amoan of the distressed. 

“ Look yonder ! ” 

The chaplain did as bidden, following a motion of 
his wife’s hand, and saw the folds of a huge black cur- 
tain slowly rising from in front of one of the temple 
alcoves. 

“ Woman’s sorrow is tardily lifted ! ” exclaimed his 
wife ; then there came to his ears words of human 
voices, which were joining in the almost human-like 
moanings of the organ ; 

“ In Rama was there a voice heard ; 

Lamentation and weeping and great mourning ; 

Rachel weeping for her children, 

And would not be comforted, 

Because they are not.” 

“ Rachel and funeral dirges seem still distant from 
the songs of the angels in Judea ! ” 

Rachel is here likened to Mary by the Apostle 
Matthew.” 

“I liken Rachel to Miriamne: for the former Jacob 
served fourteen years which, for the love he bore her, 
seemed but a few days. Cornelius could have done as 
much for Miriamne.” 


6o6 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ My knightly spouse goes from Bethlehem himself 
toward Bethany. Go back now." 

‘‘ I listen ; lead me." 

“ At Rama, the site of the tomb of Mary’s son, the 
converted publican, St. Matthew, told how death be- 
gan its cruel hunt of the Virgin’s loved Child at His 
very cradle. Sorrow envies joy ; death battles life, and 
ever more woman’s love, the choicest rose of life, has 
been crossed by the destroyer of human happiness ; 
that is human hatings." 

But how is Rachel so like Mary ? " 

“A common- agony and common needs make all 
women akin." 

“ I accord great homage to the woman who taught 
one so selfish, gnarled and rugged of soul as Jacob was 
to love so deeply, as he was taught to love by her, and 
yet almost infinitely I separate her from our Rose and 
Queen." 

“ Rachel died a martyr in maternity and therefore is 
worthy of place among the regal women of earth. 
She was one of that line of women who gave their 
lives for others. The line survives, and suffers through 
the years ; all-worthy, but not fully honored. Saint 
Matthew touched an all-responsive chord when he 
voiced the Divine pity for all motherhood, by placing 
the sorrows of Rachel and of Mary side by side. The 
plain man unconsciously soars to the plane of the 
prophets and poets when he is moved by human need 
or Divine justice." 

“The lesson is irresistible, but still I’m waiting for 
the celestial melodies that awakened the shepherd the 
night of the Nativity ! ’’ 

“ My partner shall get by giving. Here is a parch- 


A Chtme and a Dirge at Christmas Time. 6oi 

inent given me years ago to read for my mother’s con- 
solation after the death of my brothers. Read it, thou, 
to the matrons and maidens when the chantings 
cease.” 

After a time there was silence ! the hush of expecta- 
tion, for that gathering was wont at times to wait for 
words of blessing from the missioners, as the hart for 
the rivulet at the beginnings of the rain. 

“ Read ! ” whispered Miriamne, “ but not as the tra- 
gedian ! Read as a father and lover, both in one.” 
The young man complied, and these were the words of 
the parchment : 

“ There was a man named Jehoikim who, impressed of 
God thereto, offered a lamb in sacrifice. As he slew it his 
heart was touched with tenderness, and he would have 
staid his hand, but God gave him strength to perform the 
command. After this a daughter, called Mary, was born to 
him. Whenever he looked upon her gentle face he remem- 
bered the bleating lamb, and was certain that some way his 
child was to be a sacrifice to God. And it was so ; for she 
bore a Son to whom she gave all the wealth of a mother’s 
love, but at last He was offered for man’s sin upon a felon’s 
cross, the agony He felt reaching’ the heart of his mother. 
As the Son gave Himself up for the world, so she gave her- 
self up for her Son. She was sustained through it all by 
a conscience void of offense, and by the ministry of angels. 
Alone to the world, she had no solitude, for though her es- 
pousal to God had no human witness, even as Eve’s to Adam 
had none, and both were inexperienced, God was at her 
nuptials, as He is ever with those who purely give them- 
selves to Him.” 

Then the wife wept and was silent. 

“ My darling, what so moves you ? I’ve never 
experienced such a Christmas. You make the feast as 
solemn as the holy supper.” 

There came no answer ; but ere the husband could 
turn to seek a reason it came in a cry from the audience, 


6o2 The Queen of the House of David. 

and a thronging from all directions toward where the 
missioners were. 

“ Miriamne has fallen ! 

“ 'Tis a swoon ? '' 

“No, ’tis death!" There were surgings back and 
forth, voices suggesting helps, voices filled with stifled 
sobs, and voices of fright in the trebles of hysteria. 

The sick woman was borne by strong men to her 
domicile, and then began the tension of waiting. The 
young chaplain was entering the valley of poignant 
pains by sympathy’s pathway, bound by that mystic 
chain whose links are in the words : “ These twain shall 
be one flesh." Herein is a mystery often repeated ; 
the man’s grief was supplemented by a consciousness 
of vague pains passing along unseen lines from the 
woman to himself. Slowly Miriamne recovered con- 
sciousness ; but still she hovered on the confines of 
woman’s supreme hour, the hour when great fear haunts 
great hopes, great weakness yields to miraculous 
influxes of power, and great joy, in company with 
unutterable yearnings, moves along under the shadows 
and by the gulfs of greatest perils. About her 
gathered a group of matrons of her sisterhood, pressing 
to serve their beloved. 

One whispered to another : “ Her face is unearthly, 
like Mary’s as we saw it in the ‘ Assumption ’ to-day." 

The one that heard the words answered with a sob. 
The voice of pain called the drooping woman quickly 
from her semi-stupor to ministry, and opening her eyes 
she tenderly murmured to the woman that sobbed, 
“ Remember what he said : ‘Women of Jerusalem, weep 
not for me ; but weep for yourselves and children.’ If 
I go ’twill be all well; yes, by His grace, all well with 


A Chime and a Dirge at Christinas Time. 603 . 

me. Let all your pity follow the pilgrims of our sex 
who tarry to painfully journey through years of trial, 
unrequited.” 

A little later Cornelius was hastily summoned by 
one that sought him, from the shadows of an arch of 
the roof, whither he had gone for a few moments’ soli- 
tude, in which to plead, as only can a man who writhes 
in the fear of having his life torn in two. 

“ Miriamne asks for her husband.” He heard the 
words and was by his consort’s side instantly. Her 
eyes were closed, but taking her pale hand tenderly in 
his he impressed a kiss on her brow. She opened her 
eyes full upon him, with a gaze of undying love. 

“You kissed my brow, the first kiss as a lover. Then 
you said it was given in the spirit of reverential admi- 
ration. Has marriage ever changed the thought?” 

“Never!” 

“ If I should leave you, do you think you could tell 
others how to love so ? ” 

“ Oh, I can, surely ; if I can do any thing, alone ! ” 
And then came to him the silence of a dumb grief. She 
saw his agony and pitied him, yet serenely she spoke : 

“ Go onward, beloved, in the way of the prophet’s 
vision ; the power of Christ be with you ; the life of 
Mary is an open book; speak to, work for those most 
needing, then will you have your constant Pentecost 
with the ever present ‘ Grail.’ ” 

Cornelius pressed the hand he held tenderly; he 
could not speak. 

“ Repeat to me the beautiful words concerning the 
Harvest Feast which you heard out of Moses at the 
service that so blessed you at Jerusalem,” she continued 
again. Then, mastering his voice, he complied : 


6o 4 The Queen of the House of David; 

“And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the 
Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill-offering of 
thine hand, which thou shalt give unto the Lord thy 
God, according as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee : 

“ And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, 
thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manser- 
vant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is 
within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, 
and the widow, that are among you, in the place which 
the Lord thy God hath chosen to place His name there/’ 

When he finished the words he hid his face in his 
hands. 

“Thou art weary, my good master,” spoke a Jewish 
mother present. “Go now and rest. I’ll watch.” 

Quickly, gently, firmly he waved her away, as one 
unwittingly trying to draw him from the gates of 
heaven. 

“ It is not usual,” she persisted, “ for a man to serve 
this way; then thou hast other and more important 
duties, our holy missioner ! ” 

He found voice to speak, and needed to restrain 
himself from indignant tone. It . seemed as if it were 
impiety now, so great his love, to speak of any duty as 
higher than that he had toward this one woman, more 
to him than all the world beside. “ No ; if I were on 
the cross she would be there, another Mary ; if I am now 
in torture I’d be no Christian if I did not emulate Him 
who, amid crucial agonies, between two worlds, cried 
as inmost thought of His heart, 'Behold thy Mother ! ’ ” 

He felt Miriamne’s hand pressing his, and drawing 
him closer to herself. 

“ Cornelius, I’m leaning now as never before upon 
my husband’s loyal heart ! ” 


A Chime and a Dirge at Christmas Time. 60^ 

It seemed to the man as if she were nigh to crying : 
“ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ! and 
as if to answer his own thought he exclaimed: 

He will be Father, I as a mother, Miriamne, my 
Miriamne ! ” 

Grief had made him an interpreter. It was as he 
thought, the heart of the young woman, woman-like, 
had been groping about for mother-love. Memory 
had been busy, but had sent the heart of the woman 
back from groping amid the graves of Bozrah all weary, 
to nestle and rest on the breast of him that gave 
mother-love, and promised all else that loyal heart ere 
gave. 

But all was not gloomful; the clouds were shot 
through and tinted by some light-rays. 

“What if our forebodings prove untrue?” 

Hope’s question was as a north wind to a desert 
noon. 

Once the man bashfully questioned his spouse, with 
broken sentence that was half signs. 

“ Does Miriamne feel aught of reproach toward the 
great love, seemingly not far from utter selfishness, 
which enchanted to this peril?” 

“Could Madonna reproach God when she felt the 
heart-piercing sword ? To Him she submitted, no less 
do I in doing and suffering as He wills! ” 

It has been said a woman’s heart is complex, but 
this one’s was not now. It lay open, as a book, before 
her lover-husband. He saw no idol there but himself. 
Had there ever been hidden remembrance of some 
girlish love, some secret scar left by a romance, both 
burning and brief, it would have been opened or effaced 


now. 


6o6 The Queen of the House of Davids 

As she beheld her consort, this time more loved,- if 
possible, than ever before, knightly, courtly and tender, 
alert and strong to help, lavish in caressing, she not 
only felt conquered, but filled with desire to surren- 
der to the uttermost ; for she joyed to place this mail 
on the throne of her being next after God, supremely 
lord over all. So together they moved amid the 
flowers of Beulah-land, under the glorious lights of 
married love. She all compensated for the pangs the 
trying hour brought ; he thrilled, as he ascended 
higher and higher from lover love to husband love, to 
that holy delight that comes to a man beginning to 
feel fatherhood, the gift of the woman his heart has 
enthroned. For a little time both were too happy to 
speak, so they let their thoughts wing their way up- 
ward to the eternities where hopes eternally blossom. 
She presently signaled him to draw close to her, then 
his clasped hands lay on her heart, and their lips met. 
She said nothing, yet by a sign-language well under- 
stood by each, plainly entreated him to tell her over 
and over, more and more, his inmost thought, that her 
heart knew full well already. 

She heard his heart’s beatings, then she whispered : 
“ Don’t be anxious ; all is well, for all is as He that loves 
us wills.” 

“ Oh, Miriamne, I loved you never as now ; God bless 
you ! bless you ! bless you ! ” 

She interrupted him again. “The crisis is coming, 
and I thought perhaps I might not survive, Cornelius, 
but if I do not — ” 

Her words were silenced by an impassioned kiss. 

She continued, “ I dreamed, last night, that I saw 
the shadow of a cross, but on it a woman’s form.” 


A Chime and a Dirge at Christmas Time. 607 

‘‘Oh, beloved, do not think of it ! ” 

“ I do. I must ! I understand it all.” 

Pity now silenced her. 

“Oh, Miriamne!” he cried anon, as he saw her de- 
scending into the vale of agony, from which he could 
not hold her back. He dare say no more. He feared 
to voice his thoughts, lest his fears become ponderous 
and huge, once they found escape in the garb of 
words. 

Just past midnight the dispatched courier arrived, 
bringing twain of the most skilled physicians of Jeru- 
salem. 

Cornelius watched them with an interest beyond 
words. His heart sank down and down again, as he 
saw them in serious consultation. Unable to restrain 
himself, he seized the elder, and drawing him hastily 
aside, demanded an opinion. The grave old man only 
shook his head, saying : “We may save one.” 

“One? One! 

Which? What?” 

“Young man, be quiet; do not let thy emotions 
disturb the patient or the nurses. Prepare for the 
worst.” 

The husband seized the wrinkled hand of the aged 
practitioner, and then flung it from him, crying: “It 
must not be! It shall not be! ” Instantly he rushed 
toward the couch, but the two men of healing inter- 
cepted him. Then the elder one said: “ We must be 
obeyed, or else we will give no commands ! Shall we 
go or stay ? ” 

What a revulsion came ! It seemed to Cornelius as 
if these two men of skill were angels, and flinging his 
arn>s ^bout theni, he hoarsely whispered ; “ Save, 


6o8 The Queen of the House of David. 

save ! Stay and save ! All I have I give you, only 
save her ! ” 

Quietly they led him to the adjoining apartment ; 
then charged him, as he hoped for any good to his wife, 
not to re-enter her chamber until sent for. Reluctantly 
he consented, not daring to do otherwise and yet be- 
lieving in his very soul that in this hour of peril the 
bestowment of love’s caresses on the invalid would be 
better than any skill of the stranger. He withdrew to 
the arch on the roof, where unmolested he could pray. 
But his meditations were full of miserable sights. He 
thought of the Egyptians in their feats of Osiris, lead- 
ing to sacrifice the heifer draped in black ; then of Riz- 
pah defending her relatives; then of the monument in 
Bozrah, with the mother holding her dead Son. He 
thought, amid the latter meditations, of himself creep- 
ing about that monument, in the night, until he came 
to another, on which he deciphered the name, Miri- 
amnei' The imagination gave him a shock, and he 
gave way to it exhausted. An hour or so after he was 
awakened from a sort of stupor by the younger of the 
physicians, who, standing by his side, addressed him : 

“ Sir Priest, thou mayst come now ; but as thy pro- 
fession teaches, nerve thyself to confront any fate, good 
or ill.” 

“How’s my wife?” exclaimed the stricken man, 
leaping from his couch and approaching the speaker, 
that he might devour with his eyes the thought of the 
one he questioned. 

The emotionless features of the man accustomed to 
confront human suffering softened a little to pity. The 
quick eye of the missioner discerned the change, then 
he cried : 


A Chime andji Dirge at Christmas Time. 609 

^‘What, dead!” 

“ No ; if thou wilt but control thyself, thou mayst 
see her for a little while ; there’ll be a change soon.” 

The man of healing had done and said his best, but 
that was bad enough. He had tried to comfort, but 
the exigencies were beyond human powers. “A 
change soon I ” 

Hard, mocking words. Apology for bad news ! Step- 
ping-stone to saying the worst is at hand ; words so 
often used by the man of healing when his art is de- 
feated ! How like a funeral knell breaking the heart 
has come, again and again, to tingling ears those terri- 
ble sounds: “In — a — little — while — there’ll — be — a— 
change ! ” Cornelius felt all their stunning force, and 
was instantly by the side of Miriamne. What a 
change met his hungry eyes ! The fever had died 
away ; fever, that blast from the shores of Death’s 
ocean, had passed, because there was nothing longer 
for it to attack. The tide was ebbing. She lay silent, 
pale and haggard ; motionless, except as to a feeble 
breathing. The husband would have encircled her 
with his arms. It was love’s impulse, but science, the 
men of healing, restrained him. There was a little wail 
just then, and he glanced around with a look of joy, 
The nurse had brought the babe close to him, turning 
away her own face to hide her tears, but holding the 
little one out as if tryiug to say: “This shall com- 
pensate.” Then again the grief-stricken man turned 
to the physicians and whispered, in a half-fierce, half- 
terrified way: “ She’ll live — she’ll be better now.” 

The aged man, slowly adjusting the paraphernalia of 
his profession preparatory to departure, replied : “ Few 
§urviye the Caesarean section. It was a dire necessity.” 


6 10 The Queen of the House of David. 

“ Lord, behold whom Thou lovest is sick,” moaned 
the young chaplain, as he knelt by the couch and 
buried his face in its disordered covering. So the tide 
of life ebbed at midnight, leaving a stranded wreck at 
Bethany, and the Christmas chimes turned to dirges. 


CHAPTER XLII. 


THE MOTHER OF SORROWS TRIUMPHANT AT LAST. 

Are we not kings ? Both night and day, » 

From early unto late, 

About our bed, about our way, 

A guard of angels wait ! 

And so we watch and work and pray 
In more than royal state. 

Are we not more ? Our life shall be 
Imm.ortal and divine ; 

The nature Mary gave to Thee, 

Dear Jesus, still is Thine ; 

Adoring, in Thy heart I see 
Such blood as beats in mine. 

—A. A. Proctor. 

UNDREDS were assembled within the 
“ Temple of Allegory^' and other hundreds, 
unable to effect an entrance, tarried around 
about it. The knell of Miriamne, the 
Angel of the Mount, had called the vast congregation 
together from Bethany, from the country round about 
and from the City of Jerusalem. 

There were many signs of subdued sorrow, but the 
intensive expression of grief common in the East was 
absent ; neither was there any of the paganish black- 
ness, which sometimes characterizes Christians’ funerals, 
manifest. Though Miriamne was dead, her sweet, 
trustful, cheerful spirit still survived and still ruled. 




6i2 The Queen of the House of David. 

The knights of Jerusalem, led by the Hospitaler, 
were present, the latter to direct the services, by re- 
quest generally extended. 

After a “grail" song by his companions, and at its 
last words, “ / shall be satisfied when I awake in His 
likeness f the Hospitaler began discoursing. 

“ Men and women, death, the leveler, makes us all 
akin ; therefore all of us feel impoverished by the de- 
parture of the angel who shone upon us here from 
the form that lies yonder. Miriamne Woelfkin, daugh- 
ter of a knight, consort of a Gospel herald, devoted 
friend of womankind, disciple of Jesus, was gifted with 
almost prophetic insight and power of alluring unsur- 
passed in our day. Hers was the power of a burning 
heart entranced of a superb ideal, and therefore was it 
the power of immortal influence. She will live not 
more truly in the life she died to give than in the lives 
she lived to save. She was an unique woman, but only 
so because of her superior womanliness. Being dead, 
she reaches the reward generally denied the living, full 
appreciation. Her career was in part a parallel of her 
choice exemplar’s. You have heard how the Mother of 
our Lord sung her ^Magnificat' out of a heart as free 
as a girl’s, yet as proud as that of a woman’s glowing 
in the prospect of honoring maternity. But the last 
note of her rapture died on her lips full soon, and she 
never after in this life rose to such measure of joy. 
God permitted her life to pass through a series of sup- 
pressions and griefs, doubtless that she might exem- 
plify the sad side of woman’s career. The histories 
of women, mostly written by men, are marred by the 
conceits of their writers, and are at best but obscure 
pictures. The man with the pen lacks insight as to the 


The Mother of Sorrows Triumphant at Last, 613 

being, whose life is so largely an expression of heart 
and soul. The lordly writer clothes his heroes in the 
light of his fevered imagination, depicting with bold 
stroke the mighty deeds of stalwartness ; but he sees 
few heroines in his horizon. Those he does see are 
beyond his power of analysis. He falls to actual 
worship of his masculine demi-gods, perhaps as a par- 
tial atonement for his failings toward the fine and 
noble characters whose traits are too spiritual for his 
thought-limits or vocabularies. The generality of those 
who discourse concerning women, do it in a patronizing 
way, and feel to praise themselves as paragons in doing 
justice in this, even by halves. The queenship of Mary 
is constantly disputed, and so her lot is more closely 
linked with that of her sex. As she received the royal 
gifts of the Magi, holding them as a sacred trust for 
Him to whom her life was utterly devoted, so woman, 
the bearer and nurse of the race, gives all that she has 
without stint to others. Her life is a suppression; all 
bestowing ; her reward the joy she has in the lavish- 
ness of her bestowals. Hers is the joy of the fountain 
that sings because it flows. 

“ But recently ye saw the Jewish priests deposit on 
this mount, after a custom constant since Moses, the 
ashes of the red heifer. They burned their sacrifice 
with red wood. Red pointed to the blood that can 
only atone for sin. But underneath all lies a deep les- 
son. ’Twas the female instead of the male thus offered, 
and her ashes gave potency to the waters of purifica- 
tion. I read this hidden truth : the sacrifices of the 
gentler sex work out the purification of the race. As 
the moss in the heart of the stone, I see this truth ly- 
ing in the heart of the ceremonial ! As Christ’s cross 


6f4 The Queen of the House of David, 

precedes the cleansing of regeneration, so woman’s cross 
is the means by which the decays of life are offset by 
new created beings. By the bier of the wondrous 
comforter of others, I may surely appeal to those 
who hear me and loved her to seek with quickened ardor 
to offer the pain-assuaging myrrhs to those grand souls 
who go along the way to life’s crucial glories. I’d have 
such justice done as would cause all women to cease 
pitying themselves because they are such, and go about 
rejoicing that God gave them the superlative privi- 
leges of womanhood.” 

There came forth a loud cry, with moanings, from 
the part of the temple, called the “ Mother’s Pillow,” 
where the honored dead lay. 

“ Miriamne, oh, Miriamne, you brought me through 
Gethsemane to your Calvary ! ” 

A silence almost oppressive fell on the assembly. It 
was the silence of a pity too deep for words. 

Then spake the Hospitaler, in words as invigorating 
as a herald of God’s should be, and yet as soothing as 
a mother’s to her child in pain : 

“Christ, who loved the young man who was very 
good and yet not perfect, loves thee, for He is un- 
changing in His mercy. Hear me, an old man, stricken 
with the years that have schooled, and one who has ex- 
perienced the bitterness of widowerhood after loyal, full 
loving. God’s hand is on thee. He is schooling thee 
to carry on the work begun by thy wondrous consort 
now asleep.” 

“ Oh, Miriamne, Miriamne ! alone in the dark, I move 
through Gethsemane toward thy Calvary ! ” 

Again the silence of pity was broken by the voice of 
the knight. 


The Mother of Sorrows Triumphant at Last. 615 

“ Remember how David of the White Kingdom was 
called and furnished for his kingship. ‘ He chose 
David, also, His servant, and took him from the sheep 
folds, from following the ewes great with young. He 
brought him to feed Jacob, His people, and Israel, His 
inheritance.’ 

“ Missioner-shepherd, God calls thee to a ministry of 
love, for those whose trials thou hast now been taught, in 
part, to measure. You have heard how Hadadrimmon, 
the fabled god of the harvest, ever comes, bearing 
sheaves, with tears. 

“ Thus speaks the prophet : 

“ ‘ In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jeru- 
salem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon. 

“ ' And the land shall mourn, every family apart ; the 
family of the house of David apart, and their wives 
apart.’ 

“ Young man, God is giving thee a crown in David’s 
royal line. 

“ Once more I turn to her who was thy Miriamne’s 
exemplar and queen. Let me tell you all of the last 
hours of Mary, that you may find instructive parallels, 
ni read from my treasured book of traditions : 

“ After the ascension of Jesus, our Mary dwelt in the 
house of John upon Mount of Olives, and she spent her last 
days in visiting places which had been hallowed by her 
Divine Son ; not as seeking the living among the dead, but 
for consolation and for remembrance and that she might 
perform works of charity. 

In the twenty-second year after the ascension of the Lord, 
she was filled with an inexpressible longing to be with her 
Son ; and, lo, an angel appearing with the salutation, ‘ Hail, 
Mary, I bring thee a palm-branch, gathered in paradise ; 
command that it be carried before thy bier, for thou shalt 
enter where thy son awaits thee,’ And Mary prayed that it 


6i6 


The Queen of the House of David. 


be permitted that the apostles, now widely scattered under 
their great commission to gospel the world, be gathered 
about her dying couch ; also that her soul be not affrighted 
in the passage through the pale realm of death. The angel 
departed ; the palm-branch beside her shed light like stars 
from every leaf ; the house was filled with splendor, and 
angel voices chanted the celestial canticles. The Holy Spirit 
caught up John as he was preaching at Ephesus, and 
Peter, offering sacrifice at Rome, and Paul, from his place 
of labor, Thomas, from India, while Matthew and James were 
summoned from afar. After these were called, Philip, An- 
drew, Luke, Simon, Mark and Bartholomew were awakened 
from their sleep of death. These holy ones were carried to 
the Virgin’s home on clouds bright as the morning, and 
angels and powers gathered round about in multitudes. 
There were Gabriel and Michael close beside her, fanning 
her with their wings, which never cease their loving motions. 
That night a supernal perfume of ravishing delightsomeness 
filled the house, and immediately Jesus, with an innumer- 
able company of patriarchs and holy ones, the elect of God, 
approached the dying mother. And Jesus stretched out 
His hand in benediction as He did when ascending from the 
world, long before at Bethany. Then Mary tenderly took the 
hand and kissed it, saying: ‘ I bow before the hand that made 
heaven and earth. Oh, Lord, take me to Thyself ! ’ There- 
upon Christ said, ‘ Arise, my beloved ; come unto me.’ ‘ My 
heart is ready,’ she replied ; a few moments after : ‘ Lord, 
unto thy hands I commend my spirit.’ Then having gently 
closed her eyes, the holy Virgin expired without a malady ; 
simply of consuming love, permitted now by the loving Cre- 
ator to melt the golden cord binding spirit to body. And 
triumphantly amid mourners who rejoiced exceedingly in 
spirit, the body of this Queen of the House of David was 
entombed amid the solemn cedars and olive trees of Geth- 
semane. Now, this happened upon the day that the true 
Ark of the Covenant was placed in the eternal temple of the 
new heavenly Jerusalem, as they say ; and the saying is good, 
for surely, in her heart, this saintly woman kept the law; the 
divine manna as well. Even more, she was the fulfillment 
of God’s covenant that a woman should bear the masterers 
of sin.” 

The speaker then knelt ; all heads were bowed ; he 


The Mother of Sorrows Triumpharit at Last, 6 1 7 

spread out his hands as in benediction, but spoke not. 
Yet all in the silence were blessed, for the manifesta- 
tion of Christ was there. After the benediction the 
companion knights chanted an old grail psalm, repeat- 
ing again and again the stately words : 

I am the resurrection and the lifef 

As they sang their eyes were turned upward in a 
rapture as of men who saw a glorious appearing ; and 
indeed they had a vision of splendor ; but they saw it 
within, not without. 

“There are angels hovering round,'' reverently whis- 
pered Mahmood to his camel. He was too full to keep 
silent ; too distrustful of his wisdom to confide his 
thoughts to a human being. But the thought of the 
old Druse was as exalted as that of the Hospitaler, for 
the latter exclaimed, as the congregation slowly moved 
out to the strains of the organ : 

“ Methinks I hear the beatings of mighty wings ! 
Not far away is Gabriel, the ^ angel of mothers’ and of 
victories! Yea, verily, I believe that the spirits of 
Adolphus, Rizpah, Sir Charleroy and Ichabod are min- 
istering nigh us ! ” 

Many looked up through their tears fixedly, as if 
they felt what the knight had said in their souls. 

Then they laid the body of Miriamne in a new-made 
tomb nigh the Garden of Olives, not far from the 
burial-place of Mary the mother of Jesus. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 


A COFFIN FULL OF FLOWERS AND A GIRDLE WITH 
WINGS. 

“Behold thy mother!”— J esus to John. 

WO travelers journeyed slowly along Mount 
I Olivet, pausing anon to observe the flower- 
I dells between them and Mount Zion, or to 
I contemplate the wilder prospects where the 
wilderness of J udea edged close up to the hills they trav- 
ersed. As the travelers passed, the natives looked 
after them with curiosity ; for the garments of the 
former, though dust-covered, were those of person- 
ages above the ranks of the common people ; also of 
a fashion that betokened them strangers in that 
vicinity. 

One of these men was a youth, stalwart and comely ; 
the other was gray-haired and bent as if by the weight 
of years, though a closer view suggested premature 
blasting, rather than senile decline. 

“ Winfred, before entering Bethany, we’ll to the 
‘ Hill of Solomon,’ the site of Chemosh, the black 
image of the Roman Saturn.” 

Thereupon the twain turned away from the village 
and soon came upon a company of revelers, each wear- 
ing a crown of autumn fruits, and all gathered about 
a platform crowded with hilarious dancers. 




A Coffin Full of Flower Sy etc, 619 

Saturnalia ! ” exclaimed the elder. 

The worship of Saturn ceased ages ago, did it 
not ? ” 

“ Of the image, yes ; but the folly, little changed, 
continues.” 

“ This is strange enough ; and yet it’s a relief to 
meet a few happy people in this land of solemn 
faces ; even if those happy ones do joy like fools.” 

“ They celebrate the passing of summer-heat and 
the coming of the rains of autumn. Say not fools ; 
they are trying to be glad about something good, 
somehow coming from some one somewhere above 
them. Perhaps God can resolve scraps of thanksgiv- 
ing out of it all.” 

Theirs is the laughter of wine ! the laughter of 
the goat-god, Pan, whose face scared his mother and 
whose voice scared the gods ! ” 

We’ve a persistent custom here, son ; and men do 
not play the fool for generations after one manner, 
at least, without cause. 

“ These attempt to press into the court of Pleasure 
to cajole her; all men do that; these have chosen 
merely an old way. They cling to the myth of Sat- 
urn, the subduer of the Titan of fiction. They say 
that deity, dethroned in the god-world, fled to Itaiy, 
where he gave happiness and plenty through life, and 
the freedom of air and earth after death; which latter he 
made to be only a little sleep.” 

“ That was not more than a mock golden-age ; it 
never came, I think.” 

“ But very alluring to those that long for it ; they 
dance half-naked, typifying the primitive times when 
men had fewer cares, because fewer wants,” 


620 The Queen of the House of David, 

“ Can one laugh hard fates out of countenance, and 
make his troubles run with a guffaw?’’ 

“The devotees of Saturn were wont to offer their 
children in his altar-fires, and so ever more it hap- 
pens ; he that bends to the materialistic solely, kindles 
altar-fires for his posterity.” 

“After to-day what comes to these, peace ? ” 

“ Nay, a year all dark and colorless ; then another 
spasm called a feast — a brief lightning-flash revealing 
the darkness.” 

“ And so the years come and go ; one generation 
of madmen, then another ; death the only variety ? ” 

“Nay! I’d have you look upon pleasure of sense 
deified, taking its pleasures under the shadows of 
Chemosh, for a purpose. You remember we read to- 
gether, under the palms at Babylon, how the holy 
Daniel saw in vision the four winds of heaven striving 
on the sea?” 

“ I remember the prophet’s reverie or revel.” 

“ The four winds and the sea ! the meaning, opened, is 
conflict on every hand on earth ! Out of the follies and 
turmoils David’s White Kingdom will emerge at last. 
Listen to the words of the inspired seer : 

“ ‘ Behold one like the Son of Man ! There was given 
Him a dominion and a glory that all people should 
serve Him; an everlasting dominion! ’ 

“ It is coming; my poor faith, amid the conflicts and 
revels of man, hears the voice of God crying through 
the night, as in Eden’s dark hour: ‘ Where art thou ?' 
My last lesson to my son awaits us at Bethany ; let’s 
be going.” 

Ere long Cornelius Woelfkin and his son Winfred 
stood silently^ and with uncovered heads, before^ but 


A Coffin Full of Floivers^ etc. 


621 


a little apart from, a stately marble shaft that rose up 
amid the olive trees of Gethsemane. It was night, 
and they were alone. The father motioned the son 
back, and alone glided under the shadowing trees, to- 
ward the pillar. There the elder one threw himself 
down on the earth, close beside the monument ; the 
youth, deeply moved, but unwilling to intrude upon 
the scene of sacred, silent grief, stood aloof. In a 
small way, there was a repetition of the grief of the 
Man of Sorrows, who there, ages before, yearned in His 
humanity over a lost world, over those from whom His 
heart was soon to part for life. To be sure, the cross 
of Cornelius Woelfkin was infinitely less galling, less 
heavy than that borne by his Master; and yet it was 
as heavy as he could bear, and hence the pitifulness of 
his grief. 

Who can lift the curtain from his thoughts? The 
years roll back and memory’s pictures pass through his 
brain, at first in joyful train. The lovers in London ; 
the betrothal at sea; the wedding at Jerusalem; the 
ecstatic consummation in years of marriage. Then 
the painful, almost awful separation by death, that 
never to be forgotten Christmas time. And then, 
twenty years with leaden feet carrying the lone-hearted 
man so painfully slow toward death’s portals, for 
which he longed with unutterable yearning. Oh, 
Miriamne, Miriamne, let me come,” he cried. The 
youth, hearing the agonized utterings, was instantly 
by his father’s side. But the old man, still oblivious 
to all but his sorrow and his memories, moaned on 
with deepening fervor. 

Father,” called out the son. The father rose to his 
feet and calmly said : “ My boy, pity me. Fm weak. 


622 The Queen of the House of David. 

But oh, you never knew what it is to have your life sawn 
in twain and be compelled then to drag your half and 
lacerated being along the over-clouded vales of an 
undesired existence ! " 

“ My mother’s tomb ? ” 

“ Yes. I promised, as my last service to you, to 
bring you to it. Its study shall be the finish of your 
schooling.” 

Just then the clouds broke away and the moonlight 
fell full upon the monument. It was a shaft, termi- 
nating in a crucifix ; by its side were two forms, one 
that of St. John, with face turned toward the figure of 
the dying Savior; the other that of a woman kneeling, 
her face buried in her hands. On the base of the 
cross was the brief sentence : “ Behold thy mother.” 

As the youth gazed on the farewell charge of Jesus to 
John, when He commended to the care of that beloved 
disciple His sorrowing mother, he started. It seemed 
as if the words had grown out of the marble suddenly 
while he was gazing, and for himself only. He felt as 
if he could almost embrace the stone. 

The two men were silent and heart full. After a long 
time, they simultaneously turned away toward Beth- 
any. They came to a turn in the road that would shut 
out all view of the garden of sorrow, and the elder 
paused, loath to leave the place where his heart was 
buried. 

Presently he spoke again, as if unconscious of any 
other being with him: “Oh, Miriamne, I failed to 
carry out the work thou left’st me ! How could I, 
alone? I was but half a man without thee, my other 
self ! Miriamne, Miriamne, I can be only nothing when 
I c^n not be with thee.” Then the old man lifted his 


A Coffin Full of Flow He, 62^ 

hands as in benediction or embrace, and continued: 
“ Farewell, a last farewell, sweet, white soul, until upon 
the tearless, healing shores of light I say good morn- 
ing!’’ 

There was a mighty pathos in the display of this 
old, ripe, strong grief, which lived on a love that could 
not die. The man was a study. He was of fine fibre, 
almost effeminate, never firm, except in his affection 
for that one Woman. That was the one strong trend, 
the one anchorage of his life. He need not study the 
man far, who strove to know him, to discover that this 
tenacity was not natural to him always. It had been 
a growth under the influence of the peerless wife. 

Shall we go on ? ” after a little asked the son. With 
a shudder and a suppressed sob the elder moved on, 
but with laggard step,' which soon paused. Just now, 
the moon being beclouded, it was very dark about 
them, and the father reached out his hand and drew 
the youth to his embrace. He whispered: Winfred, 
son of Miriamne, you bear her image in your face, bear 
it ever in heart, as well. I’m glad you’re not so like 
me.” The son tried to speak, but the elder interrupted : 

You’ll ere long be fatherless as well as motherless, 
but take your mother for your guiding-star. You 
know what your birth cost her. By her death you 
obtained life, as by the Christ’s, immortality. She 
saved others, she could not save herself ; but if you’re 
true to her memory she’ll have a mother’s immortality, 
that life that lives in the life of her child.” 

******* 
Let us gather up the last threads of our story. After 
the death of Miriamne, the “Sisters of Bethany ’’soon 
ceased to congregate at the “ House of Bethesda,” in 


624 The Queen of the House of David, 

the city on Olivet. Cornelius Woelfkin attempted for 
a time to carry forward the work of the mission, but, 
utterly miserable himself, he did not know how to 
bestow comfort on others ; a man, without the intimate 
companionship of the woman who had been his in- 
spirer, he had no discernment of the needs of woman, 
nor power to interpret the truths that were in the Book 
or in nature, those garners of manna. 

The Hospitaler was sent for as an aid. He came 
but once, and then spoke as kindly as he could to the 
women of Bethany and Jerusalem, and took his fare- 
well of them all, in closing words like these : 

“The blessed Miriamne, child of Jesus, and emula- 
tor of Mary, has passed away, but Christ her Comforter 
and Savior may be such to each of you, that will. 
Mary’s example, as the inspiration of all women, can 
never die. The world has been a battle-ground, and 
each of you can here see over the whole field of con- 
flict. Shall all pleasures be found under the leader- 
ship of Bacchus and Venus, or in Him that is the God 
of Joy? Shall woman echo the passions of man or the 
^ Magnificat' Q>[ Mary? Shall the strength that man 
seeks be that of the giants, brute force ; the strength 
of woman be, in her youth the bewitchings of personal 
beauty, in old age the cunning of the witch-hag? Shall 
it not rather be in the girdle of her moral worth ? 

“The world needs to seek and find love, beauty and 
light. Some go after it, vainly, as did the Egyptian 
devotees of Phallic Khem ; to whom, with pitiful incon- 
gruity, were offered rampant goats and bulls, decorated 
with most delicate flowers. They called Khem the 
* God of births,' the ‘ beautiful God,’ but we know to 


A Coffin Full of Flowers y etc, 625 

put mothers on the throne as the beautiful ; their 
flowers, their jewels, their glories being their offspring ! 

“ Women of Jerusalem, never forget the Savior’s own 
words to the women that envied His mother, crying 
that the one that bore Him and nursed Him was there- 
fore peculiarly blessed ! His reply was : ‘Yea, rather 
BLESSED ARE THEY THAT HEAR THE WORD OF GOD 
AND KEEP IT.’ ” 

Then the Hospitaler, bending his eyes upon the pale- 
faced, widowed missioner, continued : “ I’ll tell thee a 
tradition of our Lord’s mother. Doubting Thomas, 
laggard because doubting, came late to the burial-place 
of Mary. He begged to have her coffin opened, that 
once more he might gaze on the face of his Savior’s 
mother. It was done. But there seemed to be noth- 
ing in that coffin except lilies and roses, luxuriously 
blooming. Then, Jooking up, he saw the spirit of the 
woman ‘soaring heavenward in a glory of light.’ But “ 
as she soared, she threw down to him her girdle. 
Here is a beautiful parable. The graves of the holy 
are to memory full of the ever-blooming roses of love 
and the lilies of purity. If we may not have them we 
loved with us always, we may have the virtues with 
which they engirdled themselves, for our conflicts.” 

The Hospitaler paused, cast a glance of yearning 
tenderness upon the assembled women and the heart- 
stricken Cornelius ; then exclaimed : 

“ Long partings are painful. Farewell!” He glided 
away ere any could clasp his hand. Not long after this 
event the Sheik of Jerusalem, Azrael’s putative son, 
raided Bethany, razing the “Temple of Allegory ” to the 
earth. He was maddened because, after the disappear- 
ance of the Hospitaler, there came to him no stipend to 


626 


The Queen of the House of David, 

buy immunity for the “ Bethesda House ” of the “Sisters 
of Bethany/' He despoiled it, hoping to find a treas- 
ure therein, but though there was in and about the 
place a great wealth, it was all beyond his grasp or ken, 
for he knew naught of the worth or power of precious 
truths and precious memories. Cornelius, after this, 
taking his infant son, soon departed from Syria. His 
dream of evangelizing the world and the great designs 
of Miriamne faded from his hopes, as the vision of uni- 
versal empire has faded often from the hopes of dying 
conquerors. For years he devoted himself to being 
father and mother to his child. At last we behold him, 
as in the foregoing pages, looking toward sunset. 
He stands finally in Bethany, his dismantled home and 
Miriamne’s ruined temple not far away, her tomb close 
at hand, himself like the fragment of a wreck; alto- 
gether presenting a sad, dramatic tableau. He stands 
there as the last of the new “ Grail Knights,” the last of 
those who in his time were devoted to the new grail 
quest. It was Saturnalia-time, and it was night. 


“Virgin and Mother of Our Dear Redeemer! 
****** 

“ If our Faith had given Us Nothing More 
“ Than this Example of all Womanhood, 

“ So Mild, so Strong, so Good, 

“ So Patient, Peaceful, Loyal, Loving, Pure, 
“This Were Enough to Prove It Higher and 
Truer 

“ Than All the Creeds the World Had Known 
Before.” 

t) 1 ^ HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 












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